Student · Builder · Psychology

Hi, I'm Elena — I build tools
for how we learn and how we feel.

A high-school student from Shanghai, fascinated by psychology — how people learn, feel, and heal. I design and ship real products that turn ideas from cognitive science into things people can actually use.

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Projects

● Live

Feynman AI

A web app built on the Feynman Technique: you pick a topic and a "student" — a curious child, a peer, or an expert — and teach it out loud to an AI. It asks Socratic questions that expose your gaps, then scores your fluency and subject mastery.
Learning scienceLLM / GeminiSpeech & visionCloud / Vercel
Open Feynman AI → View code on GitHub
● Live

Tether

A mental-wellness web app. You map how you feel on a simple mood pad, and Tether becomes a calm space to steady yourself — paced breathing, grounding, a moment of self-compassion, and a worry journal you can look back on. When you're low, it quietly connects you with others who feel the same, trading small notes of encouragement — some AI-written — so no one rides the hard moments out alone.
Mental wellnessPsychologySelf-regulation / CBTPeer supportAI / GeminiCloud Run
Open Tether → View code on GitHub
● Live

CogniCard Academic

A study tool for dense academic reading. Paste — or snap a photo of — a hard text, and CogniCard distills it into clear concept cards, each with a plain-language Feynman analogy, then helps it stick through spaced-repetition review and self-testing. It also includes an ADHD-friendly focus reader that reads aloud in a natural neural voice, highlighting each word.
Active recallSpaced repetitionADHD focus readerAI / GeminiCloud Run
Open CogniCard → View code on GitHub
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Awards & Honors

Competitions & Academic Honors
2026
Brain Bee Neuroscience Competition — National, China
International Brain Bee · supported by the Society for Neuroscience, IBRO, FENS and the American Psychological Association
The international neuroscience competition for high-school students, covering neuroanatomy, neurological disorders and current brain research — the field my projects on learning and emotion draw from.
Third Prize
2026
“The Soaring Dream of China’s Aerospace” — Award for Inheriting the Spirit of Scientists
Future Frontiers · co-organized with the Qian Xuesen Library & Museum, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
An eight-month interdisciplinary research course. The award is given on top of completing it, to students the mentor panel from SJTU’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics singled out for their research, original thinking and scientific curiosity.
Distinction
2025
“Glorious City: The Urban History of Shanghai” — Top 10% of cohort
Zhuoya Talent School–Museum Program · Pudong Foreign Languages School, Shanghai International Studies University
A two-month faculty-guided research course ending in a written thesis and an oral defense. Supervised by a professor from the School of Politics and International Relations at East China Normal University and the deputy director of the Shanghai History Museum.
Top 10%
2026
Lu Xun Youth Literature Competition, 17th edition — Provincial Preliminary
Lu Xun Cultural Foundation · Senior high division (鲁迅青少年文学大赛)
Second Prize
2026
Lu Xun Youth Literature Competition, 17th edition — Provincial Final
Lu Xun Cultural Foundation · Senior high division (鲁迅青少年文学大赛)
Third Prize
2025–26
Outstanding Volunteer — awarded twice
Pudong Foreign Languages School, Shanghai International Studies University (优秀志愿者)
School honor
Standardized Tests
IELTS Academic
British Council · July 2026 · CEFR C1
9.0Listening
8.0Reading
7.0Writing
7.0Speaking
8.0Overall
Certifications & Programs
2026
Certificate for Red Cross First Aider — Elementary
Red Cross Society of China
Certified
2026
“Great Powers’ Pillars — Eyes in the Deep Space”
Future Frontiers interdisciplinary program · co-organized with the Sheshan Science Education Base, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
Completed
2026
“Programming Fundamentals — Key to the Future”
Future Frontiers interdisciplinary program · Pudong Foreign Languages School, SISU
Completed
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Writing

Essays · ongoing

Ela’s Scattered Thoughts

《Ela 的碎碎念日记》 — 一位浪漫主义幸存者的日记

A WeChat column I write in Chinese: short essays on life, philosophy and psychology, usually starting from something small nearby that struck me as romantic or strange enough to think about properly — and where the tools on this site come from.

WeChat QR code for the column 《Ela 的碎碎念日记》 Scan on WeChat
微信扫码关注
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About me

I'm Elena — a high-school student in Shanghai. I'm drawn to psychology: how people think, feel, learn, and heal. That curiosity is the thread running through everything I build.

What keeps coming back in my work is one question: how do people actually understand — and feel — something? The Feynman Technique — "if you can teach it simply, you truly understand it" — became the seed for my first product, and the same instinct shaped the others: turning ideas from cognitive science into tools people can hold in their hands.

Away from the screen, I love writing fiction — inventing characters and living inside their heads for a while. To me, storytelling and psychology are chasing the same thing from different directions: what it's really like to be another person.

fantastical dreamer,
quietly ambitious ✎

Let's connect

Reach out about my projects, research, or just to say hi.