Jess VB
--- Dr. Jessica Van Brummelen ---
HCI Research Scientist
Niantic, Inc.
London, United Kingdom
Hello! I’m Jess, a Human-Computer Interaction Research Scientist. I work at Niantic, Inc., where I research & develop augmented reality related applications to help people explore the world around them.
Before Niantic, I obtained my PhD in computer science at MIT while working in Dr. Hal Abelson’s App Inventor lab. There, I developed conversational agent technology to empower and teach young learners about AI.
Prior to MIT, I was a mechanical engineering student at UBC, where I researched autonomous vehicles and driver assistance systems in Dr. Homayoun Najjaran’s ACIS lab.
selected publications
- CoCreatAR: Enhancing Authoring of Outdoor Augmented Reality Experiences Through Asymmetric CollaborationIn Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
, , 2025Yokohama ,Japan , - Don’t Look Now: Audio/Haptic Guidance for 3D Scanning of LandmarksIn Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
, , 2024Honolulu ,USA , - Learning affects trust: Design recommendations and concepts for teaching children—and nearly anyone—about conversational agentsIn Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2023
- What Do Children and Parents Want and Perceive in Conversational Agents? Towards Transparent, Trustworthy, Democratized AgentsIn Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, 2023
- Empowering K-12 Students to Understand and Design Conversational Agents: Concepts, Recommendations and Development PlatformsMassachusetts Institute of Technology, 2022
- Teaching students about conversational AI using CONVO, a conversational programming agentIn 2021 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2021
- “Alexa, Can I Program You?”: Student Perceptions of Conversational Artificial Intelligence Before and After Programming AlexaIn Interaction Design and Children, 2021
- Teaching tech to talk: K-12 conversational artificial intelligence literacy curriculum and development toolsIn Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2021
- CONVO: What does conversational programming need?In 2020 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2020
- Zhorai: Designing a conversational agent for children to explore machine learning conceptsIn Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2020
- Tools to create and democratize conversational artificial intelligenceMassachusetts Institute of Technology, 2019
- The popstar, the poet, and the grinch: Relating artificial intelligence to the computational thinking framework with block-based codingIn Proceedings of International Conference on Computational Thinking Education, 2019
- Autonomous vehicle perception: The technology of today and tomorrowTransportation research part C: emerging technologies, 2018