Thao is a Research Associate at the School of Computer Science and Engineering and at the fEEL (felt Experience and Empathy Lab), UNSW. Her research interests lie at the intersection between AI and humans, where she works to incorporate AI models and human psychology.

Prior to her position at UNSW, she pursued her PhD at the School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne. Her PhD focused on developing explainable AI-assisted decision-making systems that aim to help users make better decisions.

Thao has a background in data science and software engineering, with experience in academia and industry. During her research career, she has published papers in top-tier AI venues as the first author, including JAIR, AAAI and ECAI.