About
Tommy Jing-Tao Liu (/ˈdʒɪŋˈtaʊ/) is a full-stack software engineer with over seven years of industry experience in web development, UI/UX design, and hardware prototyping. His areas of interest mainly lie in Human-Computer Interaction, Educational Technology, Robotics, Computer Vision, and their intersections.
Tommy began his gap year journey in 2013 when he opted out of college education and instead worked full-time as a software engineer intern at Opera Software after graduating from high school. He then started a freelance career as a visual designer from 2014 to 2016, providing UI/UX/IxD design services for several tech startups. In 2016, he co-founded an EdTech startup named CocoRobo, where he served as CTO. During his time at CocoRobo, he led the development of software tools and hardware products adopted by over 500 K-12 schools, enhancing student engagement and problem-solving skills in STE(A)M learning. He returned to college in 2021 and is currently completing his CS degree at UIUC, while also maintaining an affiliation with the Pixel Playgrounds Lab, where he conducts research and development in HCI and Computer Vision.