Hongming (Chip) Li

Chip Li is a Ph.D. student in Educational Technology at the School of Teaching and Learning, University of Florida, advised by Dr. Anthony Botelho. His research explores Learning Analytics, Educational Data Mining, and the use of AI, especially Large Language Models,in education, with a focus on building explainable and human-centered AI systems to support feedback, instructional design, and collaborative learning environments.

Before joining UF, Chip earned Master's degrees from both Johns Hopkins University and the University of Southampton (UK). Bridging research and real-world implementation, he specializes in full-stack development and machine learning, and has led the design and deployment of several AI-powered educational platforms. His work combines technical depth (e.g., User Modeling, Causal Inference, LLMs fine-tuning, Prompt Engineering, etc.) and Development Experience (e.g., System Design, LLMs Integration, Cloudflare Workers, Serverless Functions, etc.) with a user-centered mindset, and often serves as the connective tissue between pedagogical theory and scalable systems. He is also a Kaggle Competition Master (top 1% globally), with gold and silver medals in data science competitions.

Chip sees himself as a builder, someone who turns ideas into systems, questions into platforms, and research into usable, impactful tools. Whether he's creating a LLM-powered feedback assistant for students or prototyping a dashboard for collaborative math learning, he cares deeply about design, accessibility, and making complex technologies intuitive for real users. He loves connecting people, tools, and ideas, and believes technology should help make learning not just smarter, but more human.

Outside of research, he enjoys photography and music, and is also an independent musician on Spotify.