I am Yao Rong,
a postdoctoral research fellow in Computer Science
at Rice University.

I am currently a Rice Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Computer Science Department, working closely with Dr. Vaibhav Unhelkar.
I earned my Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat) from the Technical University of Munich in 2024.

My research focuses on building actionable model explanations that help users understand model behavior, identify problems, and determine how to improve the AI system. This vision is structured around designing explanations aligned with human cognition to enhance understanding and verification of model behavior; operationalizing explanations to support tasks such as auditing model weaknesses at scale; and leveraging human feedback to drive model improvement. My overarching goal is to enable actionable model explanations that help humans take informed and meaningful actions.

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