Hi! I’m William Goss, a PhD candidate and HCI researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I study what happens when we make the normally invisible parts of computing—reasoning, iteration, mistakes, and decision-making—visible to learners and the people supporting them. I’m advised by Dr. Sarah Sterman in the Process, Interaction, and Creativity Lab.

I build and study interactive systems, often in computing education settings, and evaluate them through real-world classroom deployments. My work explores how representations of process can support reflection, help instructors and teaching assistants understand learners’ difficulties, and expand access to computational creation for people without traditional technical backgrounds. More broadly, I’m interested in what computing education should look like as AI changes which parts of programming people need to do themselves.

My research combines system building with qualitative methods such as interviews, thematic analysis, and annotated visual analysis to understand how people experience, interpret, and communicate their computational work.