About me
I am a PhD candidate studying HCI in the Computer Science Department at Washington University in St. Louis under the advisement of Caitlin Kelleher. My primary area of research examines the barriers that programmers face when collaborating across time and reusing code at a large scale. My work is aimed at developing both tools and guidelines to improve this process.
In addition to human-computer interaction, I am also interested in the interaction of technology and society–how can we use tech to improve the world, and what can go wrong along the way?
If any of these topics are interesting to you, please don’t hesitate to reach out via e-mail! I would love to learn about more people, projects, and ideas in this space.
Projects

Basketball Shot Trainer App
This is a project that employs computer vision, speech-to-text, time-series analysis, visualization, and LLM prompt engineering to provide feedback to a basketball player as they practice their shot.

Restaurant Finder
This is a project made to help people explore cities and tastes through data.

Photo Mosaic Generator
Using python to create personalized photo mosaics. More coming soon!

DevTales: Semi-Automatic Code Histories
DevTales is a tool for recording and displaying the historical decision-making behind code, improving knowledge-sharing and collaboration across time.

Wolf Monitoring
This is a proof-of-concept project to show the potential value of animal pose estimation for wildlife monitoring in vulnerable populations.
Publications
Exploring the impacts of semi-automated storytelling on programmers’ comprehension of software histories
Published in IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2024
Recommended citation: Allen, J, Kelleher, C. (2024). "Exploring the impacts of semi-automated storytelling on programmers’ comprehension of software histories."IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10714574
An Exploratory Study of Programmers’ Analogical Reasoning and Software History Usage During Code Re-Purposing
Published in Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE), 2024
Recommended citation: Allen, J, Kelleher, C. (2024). "An Exploratory Study of Programmers Analogical Reasoning and Software History Usage During Code Repurposing."Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE) https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3641822.3641864
React Example Viability for Efficient API Learning (REVEAL): A tool to help programmers utilize incompatible code examples in React.js
Published in Journal of Computer Languages (COLA), 2023
Recommended citation: Allen, J, Kelleher, C. (2023). "React example viability for efficient API learning (REVEAL): A tool to help programmers utilize incompatible code examples in React.js."Journal of Computer Languages (COLA) p.101201 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2590118423000114
How Do Teaching Assistants Teach? Characterizing the Interactions Between Students and TAs in a Computer Science Course
Published in Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2022
Recommended citation: Malysheva, Y. Allen, J, and Kelleher, C. (2022). "How Do Teaching Assistants Teach? Characterizing the Interactions Between Students and TAs in a Computer Science Course."Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) (pp. 1-9). IEEE https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9832962
Quantifying Novice Behavior, Experience, and Mental Effort in Code Puzzle Pathways.
Published in Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2021
Recommended citation: Allen, J. Kelleher, C. (2021). "Quantifying Novice Behavior, Experience, and Mental Effort in Code Puzzle Pathways." 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1(2). https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3411763.3451752
Towards Understanding Novice Behaviors and Mental Effort in Code Puzzles
Published in Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2020
Recommended citation: Allen, J. Kelleher, C. (2020). "Towards Understanding Novice Behaviors and Mental Effort in Code Puzzles." Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC). 1(1). https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9127265