Greetings!👋 I’m a recent Columbia University graduate deeply passionate about psychology, technology, and education.

My journey through undergraduate study at Purdue and graduate study at Columbia sparked my intense interest in how humans learn. My particular focus has been on the relationship between human cognition and language, leading to my master's thesis on numerical cognition in preschoolers. Following my graduation, I transitioned into hands-on educational roles, initially at a preschool and currently at a coding school, where I've witnessed firsthand the incredible ways children interact with technology. Beyond academia, I'm a big fan of virtual reality, Gen AI, and creative media like songwriting and drawing. Under the creative alias 'Karaz,' I craft illustrations for indie visual novel games (check out my illustrations here) and produce distinctive music using Vocaloid and UTAU (listen to my music here).

This portfolio highlights my UX-related work. If you’re keen on collaborating or discussing UX, I would be thrilled to connect!

Contact: zhiyucao000@gmail.com