Bringing a world into interaction
How can a system represent a novel’s settings, characters, and events so that readers can experience more than a sequence of generated passages?
Lan Zeng 曾岚
Interactive narrative & human-AI interaction
Research AssistantAIoT LaboratoryThe Chinese University of Hong Kong
Explore my research
The globe could not load. All sections remain available through the content index.
Scroll to open a world of possibilities.
Brush past the small shapes to nudge them, or drag and release. With keyboard focus, use arrow keys to move a shape and Enter or Space to pause it. Reduce motion stops automatic movement.
From stories
to lived experiences.
I study how AI-mediated interaction can help people experience and understand literary worlds. My work combines system building and interaction design to explore how readers can make their own choices while remaining engaged with the world an author created.
Responding to a reader’s choices
How should an interactive world respond to a reader’s intended actions while respecting its own rules and ongoing development?
Selected projects
Independent research
Novel-derived
interactive worlds
I design and build prototypes that turn literary texts into interactive experiences. My current architecture combines a computational game master, specialized agents, and separate GM-facing and player-facing scripts.
My contributionSystem architecture, prototype development, interaction design, and analysis of saved interactions.
Learning through making
Building and testing successive prototypes helps me identify where the system’s interpretation of a reader’s action differs from what the reader intended.
ContriCare
Community-based mutual aid for rural eldercare
I co-designed the platform, conducted field studies and semi-structured interviews, and led prototype development and qualitative analysis.
Field research · Interaction design
ThermiKit
Thermal analytics with natural-language interaction
I led development of an edge-deployable framework with agent-driven interaction over sensor data, as part of my work on sensing and interaction for eldercare.
System building · Edge AI
More interaction & game projects
Accessible appliance interaction
A tangible prototype that helps people with visual impairments identify appliance buttons through audio feedback, infrared sensing, and tactile cues. I led the interaction and hardware design and participated in user evaluation.
A 3D exploration game
A team-built Unreal Engine 4 game combining exploration, shooting, puzzles, and racing. I designed interactive scenes and implemented player interactions within a cyberpunk world.
Papers & writing
Selected papers, posters, and research manuscripts.
Publications
CHI 2026 Extended Abstracts · Poster
Beyond Transactions: Sustaining Rural Mutual Aid through Mediated Reciprocity
PublicationACM HotSense 2025 · Workshop paper
ThermiKit: Edge-Optimized LWIR Analytics with Agent-Driven Interactions
PublicationIEEE ICETCI 2023 · Conference paper
YOLOv5-LC: A Lightweight Classification Deep Learning Detector for Dining Plate
Publication
Manuscripts
Publicly available research manuscripts, not formally published.
SciPG: A New Benchmark and Approach for Layout-Aware Scientific Poster Generation
OpenReviewWhat to Ask LLM: Knowledge-Aware Follow-Up Query Generation for Progressive Information Acquisition
PDF on OpenReview
A builder,
with people in mind.
My research connects system building with the experience of the person using it.
Research experience
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Research Assistant, AIoT Laboratory
Research on rural eldercare, accessible interaction, thermal sensing, and AI-assisted care systems.
Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Research Assistant
Research on language models, retrieval-enhanced question answering, progressive information acquisition, and multimodal document generation.
Education
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
M.S. in Information Engineering
Beijing Jiaotong University
B.Eng. in Computer Science and Technology
Lancaster University
BSc (Hons) in Computer Science
Upper Second-Class Honours (2:1)
Dual-degree programme with Beijing Jiaotong University, taught at Lancaster University College at BJTU in Weihai, China.
Selected recognition
- Student Travel Grant, OECC
- Beijing Municipal Recognition, National College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program
- Provincial First Prize, Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling
- Honorable Mention, International Mathematical Contest in Modeling
Teaching & mentoring
Teaching Assistant, C Language
Supported programming instruction through assignment feedback, teaching slides, and practice problems.
Calculus Lecturer
Led review workshops and prepared learning materials for first-year undergraduates.
Why these worlds?
I came to computing through a love of novels and history. I wanted to step into those worlds and understand what it might feel like to live within them: to make choices, encounter their limits, and see how a larger social or historical world shapes an individual life.
That curiosity continues to guide my work on interactive narrative.
Interactive narrative. Human-AI interaction. Creative systems.