Yi Lu Journalist · Educator AI Storytelling Practitioner
I build tools that turn personal stories into images and moving pictures. I want to understand how those tools change who gets to speak, what counts as evidence, and who remains in control.
My work connects news production, film education, and two projects: StoriesLens for individual and collaborative storytelling, and Lightyear Biography for life stories and family memory.
From reporting lives to studying their representation.
I hold master's degrees in Journalism and International Affairs from Columbia University. My professional experience spans television journalism and international-school education, including IB Film and English-language learning. I am currently participating in UCI's Master of Education Sciences program.
Across these settings, I keep returning to a practical question: how do we help people tell their own stories without taking control of those stories ourselves?
Newsrooms
Reporting and production experience, including CBS News and Voice of America.
Classrooms
Film and media teaching, student production mentorship, and multilingual learning.
Independent projects
Design and development of StoriesLens and Lightyear Biography.
Doctoral interests
Film and media studies; communication; a distinct education research pathway.
02 / PROJECTS
Two projects. Different research questions.
These are platforms and practice contexts, not claims of demonstrated learning outcomes or completed doctoral research.
A / WRITING & LEARNING
StoriesLens
Working prototype
A platform I designed and developed around individual creation and co-creation, connecting storytelling with AI-generated images and video. My development focus includes training and configuring teacher agents to prompt ideas, guide creative decisions and support revision. The aim is a more interactive and engaging storytelling experience.
Product demonstration · A view of the platform, not an evaluation of learning effectiveness.
My contribution
Platform concept, design and development; connection to my teaching practice.
Research question
How do teacher agents shape participation, creative agency and revision during individual and collaborative multimodal storytelling?
Proposed evidence
Writing drafts, image choices, revision histories and learners' explanations, subject to consent and institutional research approval.
A mini app I designed and developed for conversational autobiography. People speak their memories in short, everyday moments, with supportive, companion-like prompts helping them recall and tell one episode at a time. These fragments gradually accumulate into a life story. Photo animation, personal AI films, voice narration and family sharing extend that core process.
These capabilities raise questions that a product demonstration alone cannot answer: when an image was never photographed, what can it legitimately claim about a remembered life?
My contribution
Independent mini-app design and development; voice-first conversational workflows for gathering autobiographical fragments over time; related audiovisual storytelling design.
Research question
How do narrators, relatives and creators negotiate what an AI reconstruction may add, change or leave uncertain?
Proposed evidence
Authorized source passages, original photographs, generated scenes and documented human revisions. Recollections and synthetic additions must remain distinguishable.
Related AI autobiography teaching material
Course material from my portfolio. It is not a research finding or participant outcome.
Generative AI and the politics of cinematic authorship.
This is my developing research agenda, not a completed study. I am preparing separate disciplinary applications rather than treating media research and education research as interchangeable.
FILM / MEDIA / COMMUNICATION
Authorship, evidence, memory
I want to investigate how AI-generated autobiographical images acquire credibility, and how narrative authority is negotiated between the person remembering, the maker and the platform.
Possible approach: close analysis of source-to-image transformations and production decisions, complemented by interviews where appropriate and approved.
EDUCATION
Agency in multimodal writing
I want to investigate how learners explain and revise creative decisions when writing with AI-generated images and video.
Possible approach: analysis of writing and revision processes. A polished film or an enthusiastic response is not, by itself, evidence of learning.
My research commitments: distinguish testimony from reconstruction; obtain permission for the use of personal stories, likenesses and voices; credit student and team work accurately; make uncertainty visible.
04 / FOR RECOMMENDERS
A starting point for an informed conversation.
Thank you for considering whether you can support my doctoral applications. This brief offers context for our conversation; it is not a drafted recommendation letter. Please evaluate only work and qualities you can speak to directly.
01
Research and writing
If you have taught or supervised me: which piece of work best demonstrates my analysis, use of evidence, independence or response to criticism?
02
Creative and technical judgment
If you know my projects: what did you personally observe me design, make, revise or resolve? Where does my contribution differ from that of students or collaborators?
03
Teaching and collaboration
If we have worked together: what specific example shows how I support others, navigate difficult decisions or follow through on a demanding project?
Materials for our follow-up conversation
I will share my current CV, the relevant writing or project sample, and a program-by-program deadline list directly with each recommender. Confidential student records, private autobiographies and recommendation letters are not hosted here.
Please reply to the message through which I shared this page to arrange a conversation or request supporting materials.
中文简介
从讲述故事 到研究故事如何被生成
我是 Yi Lu，拥有哥伦比亚大学新闻与国际事务硕士背景，曾从事新闻制作与国际学校教学，目前参与 UCI MES 项目。我设计开发了支持个人创作、共创及AI图像与视频生成的平台 StoriesLens（语镜故事），并探索训练教师Agent来引导互动与修改，以及面向人生故事与家庭记忆的光年传记。
