Hi! I'm Xucong, a first-year master's student in Psychology at Zhejiang University, working in the Social Cognition Lab with Prof. Jifan Zhou. I'm on track to graduate in June 2027. Before starting my master's, I earned my B.Sc. in Psychology from Southwest University in Chongqing, China. During undergrad, I also worked as a research assistant in several labs at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University, where I enjoyed turning curiosity into hands-on research.

As a psychology student, my interests may be a bit unusual. Deeply influenced by Dr. Xuan Zhao, I am particularly interested in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), with a focus on designing social robots that can collaborate as naturally as humans do. Grounded in human-specific social cognitive capacities—like theory of mind, perspective-taking, and empathy—I conduct user-centered research to explore how we can design robots that people easily believe can understand and interact with them. My goal is to offer design principles and create robots that bystanders can instantly understand and fall in love with.

By the way, I am also a heavy sci-fi enthusiast. I love franchises like Star Wars, Alien, Gundam, and I enjoy building LEGO and Bandai Gundam models in my spare time. I also enjoy singing—anything from pop to hip-hop—and I'm a gamer at heart, with some of my happiest hours spent climbing ranks in Valorant, League of Legends, and Teamfight Tactics.