Lindy Hernandez
I’m a third-year PhD candidate studying Informatics and specializing in Human-Computer Interaction at Penn State, where I’m part of the Health and Play Lab and advised by Dr. Xinning Gui.
I investigate how people interact with technology, examining user behaviors, motivations, and challenges in the context of everyday life. My research aims to inform the design of intuitive and user-centered digital experiences.
I have over three years of industry experience where I developed my skills in UX research, design thinking, and UX design with Kumu, User Experience Philippines, and Accenture Philippines.
In my downtime, you can find me playing board games with friends 🎲, finding ways to stay creative (currently mending old clothes 🧵🪡), or catching up on movies and TV shows 📺.
Featured Projects
Publications
Yubo Kou, Rie Helene (Lindy) Hernandez, Xinning Gui. 2025. “The System is Made to Inherently Push Child Gambling in my Opinion”: Child Safety, Monetization, and Moderation on Roblox. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2025 (CHI 2025)
Qiurong Song, Yanlai Wu, Rie Helene (Lindy) Hernandez, Yao Li, Yubo Kou, Xinning Gui. 2025. Understanding Users’ Perceptions of Personally Identifiable Information. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2025 (CHI 2025).
Rie Helene (Lindy) Hernandez, Qiurong Song, Yubo Kou, Xinning Gui. (2024). "At the end of the day, I am accountable": Gig Workers' Self-Tracking for Multi-Dimensional Accountability Management. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2024 (CHI 2024). [PDF] [arXiv] [DOI]
Qiurong Song, Rie Helene (Lindy) Hernandez, Yubo Kou, Xinning Gui. (2024). “Our Users' Privacy is Paramount to Us”: A Discourse Analysis of How Period and Fertility Tracking App Companies Address the Roe v Wade Overturn. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2024 (CHI 2024). [DOI]
News
Jan 2025: Two papers accepted to CHI 2025!
Jan 2025: Attended the GROUP 2025 Doctoral Consortium
Aug 2024: Elected as the President of GIST! I'm excited to continue serving the IST graduate student community this year.
July 2024: Awarded a scholarship to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration 2024 in Philadelphia, PA
May-Aug 2024: Spent some time with the Experience Design (XD) team at Signet Jewelers as a User Experience Research (UXR) intern!
Apr 2024: Successfully proposed my dissertation and passed my comprehensive exam!
Apr 2024: Selected to participate in the 2024 CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women, where I presented a poster on my research
March 2024: Presented a poster on my research at The Graduate School at Penn State's Graduate Exhibition
January 2024: Two papers accepted to CHI 2024!
August 2023: Elected as the Vice President of the Graduate Student Association in Information Sciences and Technology (GIST) at Penn State. Looking forward to working with my fellow officers to bring the IST community together!
July 2023: Awarded a scholarship to attend the Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration 2023
May 2023: Passed my Qualifying Exam!
August 2022: Started my PhD journey at Penn State IST