Ying Ma

Hi there! 👋 I’m a Final-Year PhD Candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Group at The University of Melbourne, under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Jorge Goncalves, Dr. Jarrod Knibbe and Dr. Zhanna Sarsenbayeva.

My research encompasses the domains of Human-computer interaction, Usable Privacy and Security, Human-AI interaction and Social computing.

Especially, my research focuses on online communities such as social networking sites, including the perception and behavior of individuals regarding their online privacy, misinformation mitigation, and designing AI-driven interventions to enhance user experiences in online environments, etc.

Feel free to contact me in case you have interest or questions regarding my work. 🤝

📮Email: ying.ma1[at]student.unimelb.edu.au

📖 Publications

2025

S. Zhang, Y. Ma, J. Chen, S. Li, X. Yi, H. Li 🏆 Distinguished Paper Award PDF

Towards Aligning Personalized Conversational Recommendation Agents with Users’ Privacy Preferences

Workshop on Human-Centered AI Privacy and Security at 2025 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (HAIPS@CCS’25)
S. Zhang, R. Ma, Y. Ma, S. Li, Y. Xu, X. Yi, H. Li PDF

Understanding Users’ Privacy Perceptions Towards LLM’s RAG-based Memory

Workshop on Human-Centered AI Privacy and Security at 2025 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (HAIPS@CCS’25)
S. Zhang, Y. Ma, Y. O. Hu, T. Dang, H. Jia, X. Yi, H. Li PDF

From Patient Burdens to User Agency: Designing for Real-Time Protection Support in Online Health Consultations

Adjunct Proceedings of the 2025 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp Companion ’25)
S. Zhang, Y. Ma, Q. Zang, Y. O. Hu 🏆 Best Student Challenge PDF

SituGuard: LLM-based Fine-grained Smart Glass Privacy Control in Home Environments

Adjunct Proceedings of the 2025 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp Companion ’25)
Y. Ma, S. Zhang, D. Yang, Z. Sarsenbayeva, J. Knibbe, J. Goncalves PDF

Raising Awareness of Location Information Vulnerabilities in Social Media Photos using LLMs

Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25)
N. Srivastava, J. Healey, R. Jain, G. Liu, Y. Ma, B. Llana, D. Gasevic, T. Dingler, S. Wallace PDF

Priming at Scale: An Evaluation of Using AI to Generate Primes for Mobile Readers

Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI LBW ’25)

2024

Y. Ma, C. M. Y. Sew, Z. Sarsenbayeva, J. Knibbe, J. Goncalves PDF

Understanding Users’ Perspectives on Location Privacy Management on Smartphones

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 8 (MobileHCI ’24)
Y. Ma, Z. Sarsenbayeva, J. Knibbe, J. Goncalves PDF

Exploring the Effects of Location Information on Perceptions of News Credibility and Sharing Intention

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS)
S. Zhang, Y. Ma, L. Fang, H. Jia, S. D’Alfonso, V. Kostakos PDF

Enabling On-Device LLMs Personalization with Smartphone Sensing

Adjunct Proceedings of the 2024 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp Companion ’24)

2023

Y. Ma, Q. Zhou, B. Tag, Z. Sarsenbayeva, J. Knibbe, J. Goncalves 🏆 Best Student Paper Nomination PDF

“Hello, Fellow Villager!”: Perceptions and Impact of Displaying Users’ Locations on Weibo

Proceedings of the 19th IFIP TC.13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT ’23)

📖 Academic Service

Paper Associate Chair: CSCW 2025 & 2026

Publication Chair: Web4All 2026

Social Chair: Computing for Well-being Workshop at UbiComp/ISWC 2025

Organizer: N2Women Panel Dicussion at UbiComp/ISWC 2025

Social Media Chair: MobileHCI 2024

Web Chair: Augment Humans 2024

Paper Reviewer: CHI, CHI-LBW, CHI-student desgin competition, CSCW, ISS, IDC, CUI, DIS, MobileHCI, INTERACT, UbiComp, ISWC

Special Recognition for Outstanding Reviews: CHI 2025 Papers

Judge: University of Melbourne CIS-DC 2025

Lab Demonstrations: HRI 2025, UbiComp 2024

Student Volunteer: IEEE VIS 2023; MobileHCI 2024; Ubicomp 2024 & 2025; Unimelb CIS-DC 2024

🎓 Education

University of Melbourne

📍 Melbourne · Victoria · Australia

PhD Candidate in HCI

School of Computing and Information Systems

2022 - 2025

New York University

📍 Brooklyn · New York · United States

Master of Computer Engineering

Tandon School of Engineering

GPA: 3.7

Related Courses: Machine Learning, Deep Learning, System Programming, Embedded Systems

2019 - 2021

Northwestern Polytechnical University

📍 Xi'an · Shaanxi · China

Bachelor of Computer Science and Technology

School of Computer Science

985&211, Double First-Class A+

Related Courses: Advanced Program language, Signal and System, Principles of Database, Computational Social Science

2015 - 2019

National Taipei University of Technology

📍 Taipei · Taiwan

Exchange Student

School of Computer Science and Information

GPA: 4.0

Related Courses: Web Programming, Computer Algorithms, Software Engineering, Digital Image Processing

2018

📖 Teaching

Academic Tutor - University of Melbourne

INFO90002 Database Systems & Information Modelling

Delivered weekly tutorials, provided guidance on conceptual and logical data modelling, and offered feedback on student progress through weekly zoom consultations.

Designed and administered assessments, including exams and assignments, to evaluate students' understanding of database concepts, SQL, and data modelling principles.

2024 sesmeter 2 & 2025 semester 1 & 2025 semester 2

COMP10003 Media computation

Delivered weekly in-person two-hour tutorials to undergraduate students, conducting hands-on exercises, and addressing student questions and difficulties

Offered individual consultations, assessed student progress, and provided constructive feedback to enhance their skills in web development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Reviewed and graded projects and tests, offering feedback to enhance student understanding

2023 & 2024 semester 1

COMP90018 Mobile Computing Systems Programming

Instructed students on using Android Development, including the setup, workflow, debugging, and deployment of applications

Taught students to incorporate various sensors from mobile devices into Android applications, enabling the creation of interactive and context-aware functionality

2023 semester 2

INFO10003 Fundamentals of Interaction design

Delivered weekly online and in-person tutorials to undergraduate students

Provided one-on-one and small group instructional support to students in various areas such as UI/UX design and academic writing

Reviewed and graded assignments and prototypes, offering feedback to enhance student understanding

2022 semester 2

Master's Thesis Co-Supervisor - University of Melbourne

Master in Computer Science: Dongju Yang [H1] (2024)

Master in Information Technology: Mehrnoosh S.Rizi (2023)

Teaching Certificates

Melbourne Teaching Certificate, The University of Melbourne 2024

Certificate in Small-Group Teaching, The University of Melbourne 2025

💼 Experience

Research Visiting Scholar - LMU

📍 Munich · Germany

Supervisor: Prof. Sven Mayer

Collaborated with the LMU HCI Group on joint research.

July 2025

Graduate Researcher Academic Associate - University of Melbourne

📍 Melbourne · Victoria · Australia 👩‍💻 0.3 FTE

Tutoring

Improve teaching materials

Regular consultation with students

Assessment

Teaching-related management and administration

From July 2024 - Now

Vice President of AI Development Group - University of Melbourne

📍 Melbourne · Victoria · Australia

Organizing weekly meetups to discuss AI-related topics.

From March 2024 - Now

Research Assistant - University of Melbourne

📍 Melbourne · Victoria · Australia

Social Media data analysis

From Nov 2023 - Feb 2024

Software Development & Test Engineer - Baidu, Inc.

📍 Beijing · China 👩‍💻 Full - time

Xiaodu Smart Speaker Divsion

Developed programs to enhance testing efficiency, facilitate real-time monitoring of online issues & alarm, and constructed automatic test framework

Experienced working for different modules and products includes Smart Speaker, Smart Dictionary Pen and membership and payment

Worked in Technology Center to implement disaster recovery transformations, ensuring the resilience and robustness of services

Oct 2021 - Mar 2022

Research Intern - Dartmouth College

👩‍💻 Remote

Investigated and analysis users' interaction needs for different smart things using computational material and makers' needs for large scale fabrication

Research on algorithms for object localization and recognition of computational material

Dec 2020 - Apr 2021

Full Stack development Intern - Union Group USA, Inc.

📍 NYC · United State 👩‍💻 Part - time

Lead a team to develop a full-stack website use Bootstrap for front-end and PHP-Laravel for backend

Finished the functions includes job/article/video posts, archives, user management, personal recommendation, login control, live assistant, station message, share to the third part, etc

Determined the structure and design of web pages and ensure web design is optimized for portable devices

June 2020 - Feb 2021

🏆 Awards & Scholarships

N 2 Women Young Researcher Fellowships, ACM SIGMOBILE, ACM SIGCOMM, IEEE Computer Society (CS), Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC), and Google, 2025
FEIT Visiting Fellows, The University of Melbourne, 2025
Diane Lemaire Scholarship, The University of Melbourne 2025
Google Travel Scholarship 2025
Best Lightning Talk - CIS Doctoral Colloquium, The University of Melbourne 2024
ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick PhD Thinkers Program & Travel Grant, The University of South Australia 2024
Best Poster - CIS Doctoral Colloquium, The University of Melbourne 2023
Eng & IT / CIS Conference Travel Scholarship, The University of Melbourne 2023
Melbourne Research Scholarship, The University of Melbourne 2022 ~ 2025
Second Prize Scholarships, Northwestern Polytechnical University 2017 ~ 2018
Exchange Travel Scholarships, Northwestern Polytechnical University 2018
1^st The 11th ICAN International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition Western Division 2017
1^st The 12th “NXP” Cup College Student Smart Car Competition Western Division 2017
2^nd China Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modelling Competition Shaanxi Division 2017