Hi! I’m Peiyu Chen (pronounced like Pay-yoo Chuhn), currently a second year MS student at the University of Chicago majoring in computer science and public policy. I’m interested in human–AI interaction, especially how algorithmic systems shape human judgment and decision-making. My work explores the design of interventions that promote more equitable, transparent, and socially aware uses of AI in everyday life.

I completed my undergraduate studies at the Maxdo College (瀚德学院) and Business School of Beijing Normal University with a dual bachelor’s degree in Economics and Spanish, where I was advised by Prof. Haoran He (何浩然) and Prof. Lancui Liu (刘兰翠). My research focused on how to use behavioral interventions—particularly nudges—to help people make better decisions.

I’m serving as a Junior Research Fellow at the World Institute of Politics, Economy and Technology, with a research focus on international policy frameworks for AI and data governance. Recently, I also joined the Oxford Computational Political Science Group at the University of Oxford as a Research Associate, where I work with Maria Milosh and Metagov on AI-mediated deliberation to study how exposure to others’ reasoning shapes preferences, group sensemaking, and collective decision-making.

I’m an amateur photographer. If you’re interested, you can explore my photography work through the Photography button in the top navigation bar.

🧠 Ongoing Projects

Can AI ever feel like “one of us” in a group conversation?

Keywords

• Human-AI Interaction
• LLM Dialogue
• Group Conversation
• Indexicality

Collaborators

Eugene Yu Ji

View details

AI-Mediated Collective Judgment

Keywords

• AI-Mediated Deliberation
• Participatory Decision-Making
• Human-in-the-Loop Systems
• Text-as-Data

Collaborators

Maria Milosh, Fynn Bachmann, Anastasia Gergel, Artem Zhiganov

View details

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Can AI ever feel like “one of us” in a group conversation?

Keywords

• Human-AI Interaction
• LLM Dialogue
• Group Conversation
• Indexicality

Collaborators

Eugene Yu Ji

This project examines what it would take for large language models to gain such interactional credibility. Building on Michael Silverstein’s theories of indexicality and interactional textuality, we place LLMs in simulated multi-party dialogues where ambiguity and role expectations test its ability to manage turn-taking, repair misunderstandings, vary register, and sustain social roles. Using a factorial design with prompt and role manipulations. We trace how interactional behaviors shift across formal and informal settings. These findings shed light on when LLMs can move from mere responders to co-constructors of identity and trust, offering clues to how humans might one day accept AI as part of their social world.

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AI-Mediated Collective Judgment

Keywords

• AI-Mediated Deliberation
• Participatory Decision-Making
• Human-in-the-Loop Systems
• Text-as-Data

Collaborators

Maria Milosh, Fynn Bachmann, Anastasia Gergel, Artem Zhiganov

This project develops an AI-assisted framework for participatory resource allocation that improves collective judgment without replacing human decision-making. It introduces a structured learning phase before voting, in which participants are exposed to neutral summaries of diverse viewpoints and reasoning across the group, helping them better understand others’ needs, constraints, and trade-offs before revising their own positions. By using AI only to organize and surface distributed perspectives at scale—rather than to make evaluative decisions—the project aims to improve the fairness, quality, and legitimacy of collective funding and budgeting outcomes in participatory governance settings.

🎖 Honors, Awards, and Grants

Grants and Scholarships

• 2024.09 ($5,000) CAPP Startup Program, University of Chicago
• 2024.02 ($20,000) Minnesota Nonresident Tuition Awards (offered), University of Minnesota (Twin Cities Campus)
• 2022.06 ($6,000) Undergraduate Research Grants, Ministry of Education of the PRC & Beijing Normal University

Honors and Awards

• 2024.06 AHEC (Amur-Heilong Environmental Conservation) Ambassadors, WWF (China) (9 candidates in China each year)
• 2024.03 Best Team, Young Ambassador Program, Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (1 team across China, Japan, and Korea each year)
• 2023.11 Top Ten Volunteers, Beijing Normal University
• 2023.05 Grand Prize, The 9th China National College Student Competition on Energy Economics (Top 10 among 6148)

📖 Educations

• 2024.09 - present, M.S. in Computational Analysis & Public Policy, University of Chicago, Chicago.
• 2020.09 - 2024.06, B.Econ. in International Economics & Trade, Beijing Normal University, Beijing.
• 2020.09 - 2024.06, B.A. in Spanish, Beijing Normal University, Beijing.

💬 Invited Talks

Nudge: social advocacy, carbon label, and low-carbon consumption

• 2023.09, School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Science
• 2023.06, Business School, Beijing Normal University
• 2023.05, Antai College,Shanghai Jiao Tong University

🧑‍🏫 Teaching

• 2026.03 - 2026.05, Teaching Assistant, CAPP 30254 Machine Learning for Public Policy, University of Chicago
• 2026.01 - 2026.03, Teaching Assistant, CAPP 30271 Mathematics for Computer Science and Data Analysis/Linear Algebra, University of Chicago
• 2024.03 - 2024.06, Teaching Assistant, Management Information Systems (MBA), Beijing Normal University

💻 Internships

• 2025.07 - present, Research Assistant, The Perception and Judgment Lab & Mindworks, Booth School of Business, Chicago.
• 2024.03 - 2024.06, Telecommunication, DETECON, Beijing.
• 2022.09 - 2024.02, Center for Philanthropic Studies, China Philanthropy Research Institute , Beijing.

🤝 Civic Activities

Updated at 2026-03-16 | Thanks Ren Yi for open source template.