Erica J. Yoon

I design learning systems, build the infrastructure to run them, and use behavioral evidence to measure what works. My work spans Stanford research and program leadership, AI and EdTech evaluation, and community college instruction — with a consistent focus on closing the loop between data and action. I hold a PhD in Psychology from Stanford, where I studied how people interpret language, reason about others’ goals, and navigate social norms.

Before this, I served as Teaching Coordinator for Symsys 1: Minds and Machines in Stanford’s Symbolic Systems program, where I coordinated instructional teams across psychology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy. In that role I helped redesign the course into a hybrid flipped-classroom model that combined asynchronous lectures, discussion-based learning, and project-based exploration of topics related to cognition and artificial intelligence.

I completed my PhD in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, where I worked with Dr. Michael C. Frank in Language and Cognition Lab. My research examines how adults and children interpret speakers’ intentions in communication. In particular, I study how people infer the goals behind language—such as informing others, maintaining social relationships, or presenting oneself positively—using polite language as a case study.