Yining "Elena" Zhang

Human-Centered Product & Strategy

Houston, Texas, United States

About

In the lab, I lead a study on pilot vigilance and adaptive automation, combining behavioral data and eye-tracking to inform future aerial system designs.

Experience

  • Human Factors & Applied Media Intern at Alcon
    May 2026 - Present · 3 mos

  • VP of Community at Consulting Club at the Texas Medical Center
    Dec 2024 - Present · 1 yr 8 mos

  • Graduate Human Factors Researcher at Rice University
    Aug 2023 - Present · 3 yrs

    Conducted the end-to-end experiment design and implementation of a NASA-funded study on drone operation Analyzed 20M+ eyetracking and performance data in R to generate research insights Presented findings at AIAA and HFES conferences and provided insights to NASA stakeholders

  • 2026 Bridge to BCG at Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
    May 2026 - May 2026 · 1 mo

  • University of Notre Dame (2 yrs 10 mos)
    • Research Assistant
      Feb 2021 - May 2023 · 2 yrs 4 mos

      • Collaborated with two teams to implement and manage joint projects on memory in virtual environments • Identified flaws in the current participant tracking system and designed solutions to coordinate time slots and participant numbers on Google Calendar and Doc • Gave training to new research assistants and identified flaws in experimental design to optimize results collection

    • Research Assistant
      Aug 2020 - May 2023 · 2 yrs 10 mos

      • Improved the lab’s data transfer efficiency by streamlining and automating the process in Excel • Performed secondary research on personality, IQ, and mental disease and made presentations to coworkers and directors to deliver insightful conclusions