May 2026
🎙️ I attended the 2026 NSF M3X PI Meeting, representing our team and presenting our research on Active Inference.
Hello! I am Xingjian (pronounced “Shing-jee-en”) Ma, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Human Factors and Machine Learning (HFML) Lab in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
My research focuses on computational modeling of human behavior as a core component of human–automation interaction systems. Specifically, I integrate human factors engineering, machine learning, and probabilistic cognitive modeling, particularly POMDP-based Active Inference, to study human behavior and decision-making in complex, uncertain environments.
My work goes beyond merely modeling what humans do by also capturing what they believe, what they are uncertain about, and how these internal states shape their actions. This provides a more flexible, interpretable, and computationally implementable framework for connecting observable behavior with latent cognitive factors, with the goal of improving the safety, performance, and human-centered design of automated systems.
Updates
Apr. 2026
🎙️ Undergraduate students I mentored presented our work on latency mitigation effects in remote driving at the UW–Madison Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Jan. 2026
🎉 I passed my Ph.D. preliminary examination.
Jan. 2026
🎙️ I attended the 2026 TRB Annual Meeting and presented our work on human adaptation patterns in remote driving under latency.
Oct. 2025
🎙️ Our work on trust modeling in automated driving with physiological data was presented at ASPIRE—the 69th HFES International Annual Meeting.
Apr. 2025
🎙️ I attended the 2025 Safe Mobility Conference and presented our work on latency effects on human in remote driving.
Mar. 2025
📝 Our work What leads to reliance on automated vehicles? An inferential analysis of responses to variable AV performance was published in Applied Ergonomics.
Oct. 2024
🎉 I passed my Ph.D. qualifying examination.
Sep. 2024
🎙️ I attended ASPIRE—the 68th HFES International Annual Meeting and presented our works on discrete event simulation of remote operator workload and reliance decision modeling in automated vehicles
Jan. 2024
🎙️ Our work on statistical pattern–based analysis of visual scanning behavior in driving was presented at the 2024 TRB Annual Meeting.
Aug. 2023
🏫 I joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a Ph.D. student in Industrial and Systems Engineering (Human Factors track).