A maverick at heart, I find tremendous intellectual joy in research and writing, and remain endlessly fascinated by Existentialism, philosophical Taoism, and the wonders of nature; definitely not a fan of Confucianism and have no interest in chasing worldly success.
Trained in information science and systems. PhD at the University of Tokyo, visiting scholar at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London, postdoc at the University of Melbourne, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo. Founder and director of the Ubiquitous and Personal Computing Lab at KUAS. All was done for fun!
The "Self" is a central theme of my research—not the version shaped by social norms (as in Confucianism), but the authentic self designed by nature (as in Taoism). This fuels my enduring curiosity about the diversity of the human body and mind, and the evolutionary drives behind them. I integrate computing technologies, interaction design and AI to empower individuals to understand and realize this true self, and ultimately cultivating a harmonious, respectful relationship with one's inner world. My research favors deep ideographic, longitudinal approaches over shallow populational, cross-sectional snapshots.
Raised in a family of teachers, I developed a genuine curiosity about how to help people learn faster and better. My teaching philosophy is profoundly influenced by my father, who taught with boundless compassion and an unwavering respect for each student’s individuality. At a practical level, I honed my pedagogical skills through the faculty development program at University of Melbourne and the English-medium instruction training at the University of Tokyo.
I treasure physical strength and self-discipline. When I'm not researching or writing, you can find me doing HIIT (Les Mills), barbell training, kick boxing, Pilates, yoga (Bikram) to maintain pro-athlete level metabolic profile. I've trained for 10 years in Taekwondo, Chinese martial art and Shotokan Karate. I follow a Paleo diet with time-restricted feeding (though only intermittently these days, haha...ego depletion...) and I'm strongly against sugar and artificial sweeteners.
We welcome interns from all our partner universities. For more information about internship projects provided by the Ubicomp Lab, please check the list of internship projects we offer for AY2026.
Our following papers were accepted by 2025 IEEE 11th World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT). [8 Aug 2025]
Liang Z, Chen S, Hoang NN, Edward M. Sleep, Sensors, and the Smartwatch: Co-Design Interaction Modalities for On-Wrist Health Apps.
Liang Z, Karunarathna TS, Baig A, Beten A, Lococo L. AIM-W: an Input-Adaptive Framework for Interoperable Physiological Modeling on Wearables.
Congratulations to our 2024 summer research intern Adam Saleh on being selected as the Winner of the 2025 OSU Student Impact Award! Well done, Adam — we’re proud of you! [28 July 2025]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the international conference on engineering, technology, and education (TALE 2025), the flagship conference of the IEEE Education Society. [26 July 2025]
Our group has entered into a joint research agreement with Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine (Prof. Masahide Hamaguchi) and Nanoresearch Kyoto Co., LTD (CEO: Mr. Yasuhisa Fujii) to advance collaborative research in AI-powered FemTech. [21 July 2025]
I was invited to serve on the Program Committee of the 12th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Ageing Well and e-Health (ICT4AWE 2026). [21 July 2025]
We will give the following presentations at the 7th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2025). [21 July 2025]
Raj P, Hoang N, and Liang Z. Software Engineering for PMS Self-Care: Integrating Clinical Assessment with Data-Driven Health Management on Smartphones.
Hoang N, Morrison H, Karunarathna TS, and Liang Z. Developing Serious Games on WearOS: A Software Engineering Perspective on Wearable-Game Integration.
I was invited to review for the Journal of Sleep Research, a leading journal in sleep science and medicine. [17 July 2025]
We were delighted to welcome Prof. Huanyu Larry Cheng (Penn State University, USA), who gave a talk entitled "Standalone Stretchable Device Platform for Biomedicine" in our Ubicomp Research Seminar series. We had fruitful discussion on the potential applications of stretchable sensors to physiological sensing and healthcare. [16 July 2025]
We were delighted to welcome Prof. Chee Siang Ang (Imperial College London/University of Kent, UK) and Prof. Alex Covaci (University of Kent, UK) to our lab. We had fruitful discussion on digital health and human-computer interaction (HCI). [14 July 2025]
Our following paper was accepted by Frontiers in Sleep, indexed by Scopus. Liang Z, Melcer E, Hoang HN, Khotchasing K. Sleep Hygiene Games and Gamification: Where Are We and Where Are We Heading? [14 July 2025]
Our following paper was accepted by Social Network Analysis and Mining (Q1), indexed by SCI, and Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. GEM: Graph Attention Encoder for Multi-task Depression Severity Detection in Multi-party Conversations. [8 July 2025]
Our following papers were accepted by 2025 IEEE 14th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2025). [4 July 2025]
Saskovets M, Lohachov M, Liang Z. Cortisol Estimation Using Wearable Wristbands: Comparing Multilevel Modelling and Machine Learning.
Carvalho CF, Liang Z. Short-Term Glucose Prediction in Diabetes: Comparing Deep Learning Training Paradigms.
Hossain FMM, Tan DJG, Mohamed IA, Ayun QQ, Matsunaga S, Junaideen AS, Liang Z. From Skin to Screen: Real-Time Wound Monitoring with a Smart Bandage and Smartphone.
Ahmed H, Liang Z. Design and Development of a Smartwatch App for Mood Tracking, Reflection and Regulation.
Senanayake A, Liang Z. CE-LAH: Contextualized Embeddings for Longitudinal Analysis of Human Anxiety.
Raj P, Liang Z. Design and Implementing a mHealth Application for Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) Screening.
Karunarathna TS, Liang Z. Bottom-Up Feature Selection for Continuous Glucose Prediction Using Wearable Data.
We will give the following presentation at the 2025 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. Karunarathna T, Beten A, Lococo L, Baig A, Hoang N. Impact of Cross-Subject Distribution Shifts on Glucose Prediction Using Wearable Data. [2 July 2025]
We will give the following presentations at the World Sleep 2025, the premier international conference in sleep and circadian science and medicine. [1 July 2025]
Liang Z, Hoang N, Karunarathna T. Uncovering Sleep-Linked Glucose Dynamics in Healthy Individuals Using Wearable Data. (Acceptance rate for oral presentation = 14.3%)
Hoang N, Villeneuve J, Morrison H, Tu A, Karunarathna T, Hwang D, Chen S, Khotchasing K, Liang Z, Melcer E. Delivering Sleep Hygiene Interventions through Smartwatch-based Serious Sleep Games.
Liang Z, Chapa-Martell MA. Visualizing Temporal Patterns in Sleep Tracker Accuracy: A Novel Approach to Validating Consumer Sleep Technologies.
Liang Z. Improving Sleep Stage Classification from Consumer Wearables Using a Two-Level Machine Learning Framework with Selective Correction.
Liang Z. Unpacking the Discrepancy Between Subjective and Wearable-Measured Sleep: A Neurophysiological Perspective Using fNIRS.
Liang Z. Bedtime Stress and Prefrontal Cortex Hemodynamics During Sleep: A Pilot Study Using Wearable fNIRS and Salivary Biomarkers.
Hoang N, Liang Z. Interpretable Machine Learning Using Questionnaire Data: A Scalable Approach for Sleep Apnea Screening.
Our following paper was published in Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology (Q2), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Marina Saskovets, Mykhailo Lohachov, Zilu Liang. Paralanguage as a Tool for Shaping Stress Response in Listeners: Multimodal Physiological Sensing Study. [20 June 2025]
Our following paper was published in SN Computer Science (Q2), indexed by Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. Who Says What (WSW) 2.0 : Utterance Semantic Modelling for Speaker Identification in Text-Based Multi-Party Conversations. [16 June 2025]
I was invited to serve as a TPC member of the 19th International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF 2026). [12 June 2025]
Our following papers were accepted by the 73rd Annual Conference of Japanese Society for Engineering Education (JSEE) - International Session. [2 June 2025]
Liang Z, Melcer E. Fostering Knowledge Convergence: Pedagogical Value of International and Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration.
Hoang NH, Liang Z. Navigating Stress in Academic Life: An EDA Study of Stress Responses across Research Activities.
I was invited to serve as a TPC member of the 2025 IEEE 14th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE 2025). [29 May 2025]
Our following paper was published in Sensors (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Thilini Savindya Karunarathna , Zilu Liang. Development of Non-invasive Continuous Glucose Prediction Models Using Multi-Modal Wearable Sensors in Free-living Conditions. [18 May 2025]
Our following paper was published in Brain Sciences (Q2), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Marina Saskovets, Mykhailo Lohachov, Zilu Liang. Validation of a New Stress Induction Protocol using Speech Improvisation. [16 May 2025]
I was invited to serve as an external PhD thesis examiner for the University of Queensland, Australia. [15 May 2025]
Our following research proposal was accepted by the KUAS Advanced Research Grant (PI: Dr. Zilu Liang). Crushing Blood Sugar: Developing an AI-Powered Smartwatch System for Non-Invasive, High-Accuracy Glucose Monitoring in Daily life (スマートウォッチを活用した高精度・非侵襲型血糖モニタリングAIシステムの開発). [15 May 2025]
I was invited to serve as an grant reviewer for the Dutch Research Council (NWO, Dutch: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek ), the Netherlands. [8 April 2025]
The following student team from our lab was selected as a Finalist Team of the 2025 IEEE CIS Student Grand Competition on Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Healthcare. [30 April 2025]
Karunarathna TS, Hoang NH, Khurshe S, Beten A, Lococo M. GlucoPatrol: AI-Powered, Non-Invasive Smartwatch System for Continous Glucose Monitoring.
Our lab contributed 1 full paper and 4 workshop papers at the 2025 ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2025), the premier international conference of Human-Computer Interaction. [28 April 2025]
Main conference: Liang Z, Hwang D, Chen S, Hoang NH, Khotchasing K, Melcer EF. User Preferences for Interaction Timing in Smartwatch Sleep Hygiene Games. (Acceptance rate = 7.8%)
HCI+Health Workshop
Liang Z. Statistical Lessons Learned in Personal Informatics Research.
Liang Z, Hoang NH, Karunarathna T. A Pilot Study on Sensemaking of Consumer Micronutrient Tests: Sufficiencies, Deficiencies, and Barriers to Improvement.
Ahmed H, Liang Z. (2025) Wandering as CLOUDS: Designing Soft Nudges for Mood Logging and Reflection on Smartwatches.
Human-Centered Evaluation and Auditing of Language Models Workshop (HEAL@CHI'25)
Yapa HPPP, Senanayake A, Liang Z. (2025) PIFU: A novel framework to evaluate the interpretability of synthetic free-text explanations in digital mental health. (The Most Trending Paper Mention)
Our following paper was published in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (Q2), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Priyadarshana YHPP, Liang Z, Piumarta I. (2025) ExDoRA: Enhancing transferability of large language models for depression detection using free-text explanations. [28 April 2025]
We will make the following presentation at The 48th Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society. Saskovets M, Lohachov M, Liang Z. Towards Personalized Stress Monitoring: Multilevel and Machine Learning Models for Cortisol Prediction. [7 Apr 2025]
Our following paper was published in Frontiers in Digital Health (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Hoang NH, Liang Z. AI-Driven Sleep Apnea Screening With Overnight Blood Oxygen Saturation: Current Practices and Future Directions. [24 March 2025]
Our following paper was published in Sensors (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Hoang NH, Liang Z. Detection and Severity Classification of Sleep Apnea Using Continuous Wearable SpO2 Signals: A Multi-Scale Feature Approach. [7 March 2025]
Our following poster received an Honorable Mention for Best Poster Award at the 18th International Conf on Health Informatics, a premier international conference of health informatics. Senanayake A, Liang Z. (2025) Anxiety Detection in Reddit Posts through Emotion Dynamics Analysis. [22 Feb 2025]
Dr. Liang was honored to receive Special Recognition for Outstanding Review for her work at the 2025 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'25), the premier international conference in Human-Computer Interaction. This marks the third time she has received this recognition, following CHI'22 and IMWUT'21. [18 Feb 2025]
Our following paper was published in JMIR Mental Health (Q1), indexed by PubMed, SCI, and Scopus. Saskovets M, Saponkova I, Liang Z. Effects of Sound Interventions on the Mental Stress Response in Adults: A Scoping Review. (Acceptance rate = 25%) [5 Feb 2025]
Our PhD student Ms. Nhung Huyen Hoang won the Best Doctoral Candidate Project Award at the Doctoral Consortium at the 17th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2024) for the project "Serious Gamification App for Improving Sleep-Wake Cycle and Sleep Education". [9 Jan 2025]
Our master student Mr. Cleber Franca Carvalho received a Best Presentation Award at the 4th International Conference on Big Data and Computational Intelligence (BDCI 2024) for the presentation entitled "Glucose Prediction with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Models". [14 Sep 2024]
Dr. Liang received a Best Presentation Award at the 6th World Symposium on Software Engineering (WSSE 2024) for the presentation entitled "Middleware Solution for Real-Time Physiological Data Streaming from Consumer Smartwatches". [14 Sep 2024]
Our PhD student Mr. Yapa Prasan won an Honorable Mention Award at the 2024 IEEE CIS Student Grand Competition in Computational Intelligence in Biomedicine and Healthcare, with the following project Vishadha: Early Smart Depression Detector. [30 June 2024]