Xinru Tang

About

I am a Ph.D. candidate at Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine. I am advised by Dr. Anne Marie Piper as a member of Accessibility Research Collective. I was also fourtunate to work with Dr. Yixin Zou in her Human-Centered Security and Privacy group at Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP).

Research Interests

My current research focuses on bringing disabled people's lived experiences to the entire AI development pipeline -- from dataset collection to model evaluation and application design. Toward this goal, my work (1) understands lived disabled experiences, and (2) develops disability-centric AI practices with affected communities and domain professionals. My interest in the diversity of human bodyminds is grounded in work with people across disabilities, ages, languages, and cultures. I take insights across disciplines to shape my ideas especially critical scholarship.

Latest Publications

Everyday Uncertainty: How Blind People Use GenAI Tools for Information Access
Xinru Tang, Ali Abdolrahmani, Darren Gergle and Anne Marie Piper
@CHI2025 [PDF] [ACM] [slides]

Beyond "Vulnerable Populations'': A Unified Understanding of Vulnerability From A Socio-Ecological Perspective
Xinru Tang, Gabriel Lima, Li Jiang, Lucy Simko and Yixin Zou
@CSCW2025 [PDF] [ACM] [slides]
*Recognition for Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion*