I previously interned at Cruise, BEGiN, and Itemize.

Check out my previous UX projects and academic research below.

Itemize Lost & Found Research

Methods: moderated & unmoderated usability studies

with qualitative & quantitative measures

Cruise Internal Tooling Research

Methods: field studies & semi-structured interviews

with qualitative & quantitative measures

Coming soon: Cruise Consumer Insights Research

Method: focus groups

with quantitative measures

Publications & Presentations

  • Adolescents' Reasons for Nondisclosure with Parents

    In this collaborative project, I examined patterns of adolescents’ endorsed reasoning for not disclosing personal activites and personal feeings with mothers and fathers. My sample included 289 Chinese, Mexican, and European heritage adolescents. Associations between profiles and adolescent adjustment and relationship quality were also examined.

    I found three profiles differing by race/ethnicity and generational status : Mothers: personal, sanction-drive, and self-conscious; fathers: private, harmless, and sanction-driven. The mother personal and father private profiles were most normative; the private profile and sanction-driven profiles were associated with poorer adjustment relative to the other profiles.

    View Publication

  • Social Identity and Contamination

    We asked how children reason about foods that are contaminated by someone from within versus outside their culture. We presented 3- to 11-year-olds (N= 534) with videos of native and foreign speakers eating snacks.

    We found that young children are more willing to eat contaminated food from people who spoke their language than clean food from people who spoke a foreign language. However, with age, children placed more weight on contamination status of the food.

    View Publication

  • Li, Y., Smetana, G. J. (under revision). Differences between Adolescent Disclosure with Parents and Links with Adjustment.

  • Li, Y. Smetana, G. J. (submitted). Longitudinal Links between Adolescent Information Management Strategies and Outcomes: Youth and Parent Reports.

  • Smetana, J. G., Li, Y., & Mncwabe, S. (2024). Voluntariness, timing, and consistency in adolescent routine disclosure and lying to parents. Journal of Adolescence, 96(1), 152-166. Link

  • Liu, J., Midgette, A. J., & Li, Y. (2023). I just don’t agree with my parents: Why Chinese adolescents keep secrets. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 1-25. Link

  • Li, Y., Smetana, J. G., & Yau, J. (2022). Patterns of Reasons for Not Disclosing Personal Activities and Feelings to Mothers and Fathers among Ethnically Diverse Adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 1-14. Link

  • Li, Y., Smetana, G.J. (2022). Within Person Patterns of Adolescent Reasoning for Non-disclosure to Mothers and Fathers in Three Ethnic Groups. Poster presented at Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, LA.

  • Li, Y., DeJesus, J. M., Lee, D. J., & Liberman, Z. (2021). Social Identity and Contamination: Young Children are More Willing to Eat Native Contaminated Foods. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 201, 104967. Link

  • Li, Y., Smetana, G.J. (2021). Adolescent Information Management with Mothers and Fathers. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development (virtually due to COVID-19).

  • Longtin, M., Li, Y., Lee, D.J., & Liberman, Z. (2018). Social identity and contamination: Young children are more willing to eat native contaminated foods. Poster presented at the Undergraduate Research Colloquium, Santa Barbara, CA.

  • Li, Y., Woods, V. (2017). The Effects of Social Media on Online Multimedia Learning. Paper talk presented at the UCLA Psychology Undergraduate Research Conference, Los Angeles, CA.

Let’s chat!

Please feel free to email me at esyjli@gmail.com. I look forward to meeting you!