Research
A collection of research projects and publications.
Publications
A survey poster
The State of Climate Change and Disability: A Survey [ASSETS 2025]
Ethan Sandoval, Lily Anfang, Maya Flynn, Kaitlynn Gray, Gregory Wickham, Lynn Kirabo
Conducted a survey of 253 sources to map the intersection of disability and climate change.
A blog
Being a First-Year Undergrad in Human-Centered Research [IX Interactions 2025]
Lily Anfang, Maya Flynn, Kaitlynn Gray, Ethan Sandoval, Lynn Kirabo
A blog post discussing our experience with overcoming imposter syndrome during our summer research project.
A research article
The Diversity-Hire Narrative in CS: Sources, Impacts, and Responses [SIGCSE 2024]
Christopher Perdriau, Vidushi Ojha, Kaitlynn T. Gray, Brent Lagesse, Colleen M Lewis
Researched the diversity-hire narrative - the belief that someone received a job due to a part of their identity and not their skill. Explored who said this narrative, how it impacted those who heard it, and how people responded to hearing it.
An abstract
The Diversity-Hire Narrative in CS: Sources, Impacts, and Mitigation Strategies [ICER 2023]
Christopher Perdriau, Vidushi Ojha, Kaitlynn T. Gray, Brent Lagesse, Colleen M Lewis
Researched the diversity-hire narrative - the belief that someone received a job due to a part of their identity and not their skill. Explored who said this narrative, how it impacted those who heard it, and ways to prevent harmful effects from hearing this narrative.
Projects
Research Assistant - Harvey Mudd College CACTI Lab [Fall 2025]
Kaitlynn Gray
Lead authoring an HCI pictorial. Additionally, designing graphics to support the lab advisor.
What I did: Read a variety of HCI papers and pictorials to create a pictorial analyzing qualitative works. Designed and iterated on pictorial assets in InDesign, Figma, and Canva. Provided feedback to external CACTI Lab projects and designed resources for the combined Climate majors at Harvey Mudd.
Human-Computer Interaction Researcher - Harvey Mudd College CACTI Lab [Undergrad Summer 2024]
Lily Anfang, Maya Flynn, Kaitlynn Gray, Ethan Sandoval, Lynn Kirabo
Published a survey poster in ASSETS ’25 and a blog post in ACM’s iX Interactions. Explored the intersection of disability and climate change.
What I did: Read/listened to over 70 academic articles, research papers, online blogs, and podcasts about climate change and disability. Summarized their findings and methods. Grouped readings by theme and identified trends. Wrote a portion of our team’s iX Interactions blog post exploring imposter syndrome experienced as HCI researchers. Also designed the cute logo you see!
Computer Science Education Researcher - UIUC remote collaboration with Harvey Mudd College [Undergrad Summer 2023]
Christopher Perdriau, Vidushi Ojha, Kaitlynn T. Gray, Brent Lagesse, Colleen M Lewis
Published a research article in SIGCSE ’24 and an abstract in ICER ’23. Researched the diversity-hire narrative - the belief that someone received a job due to a part of their identity and not their skill. Explored who said this narrative, how it impacted those who heard it, and ways to prevent harmful effects from hearing this narrative. Image source.
What I did: Qualitatively analyzed 23 interviews for themes and main ideas using SaturateApp. Proofread and edited our published paper. Presented our findings at the Harvey Mudd 2023 Summer Research Symposium. Designed the layout for the research poster under “Poster PDF”.
Computer Science Entrepreneurship Researcher - Harvey Mudd College Summer Start-Up [Undergrad Summer 2022]
Arisa Cowe, Kaitlynn Gray, Caleb Wheeler
A website where students can see the assignments due for all of their courses on an online assignment tracking tool. Part of an entrepreneurship summer research project.
What I did: Designed the UI for all of the pages in Canva, programmed the UI for the weekly assignments page using React, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Designed our research poster and presented our project to staff, faculty, and community members.