Elijah Cantu
I am a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information on a full-tuition scholarship. I
earned my undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Michigan's College of Engineering on a full ride. I'm
not really sure what I want to do for the rest of my life, but it will be things that help people.
OAMI
I am a graduate student coordinator at the University of Michigan Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives.
Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives
First-generation student initiative
Very slightly helping my supervisor Leyla Dumke pioneer a peer coaching program with the Science
Learning Center to pull drop, fail, and withdraw (DFW) rates among first-generation students in
Organic Chemistry 1 and 2 down from 40% toward the course average of 15%.
Study Jamz
Study sessions I coordinate in partnership with NSBE and SHPE leadership.
Programs and events
Events I help coordinate with more than ten minority student organizations and university
departments, on networking, research, study abroad, community building, and careers.
Robotics
I am a research assistant in the University of Michigan Robotics Department, where I work in Robot Studio with Professor Patrícia Alves-Oliveira. I study how families live with social robots at home, and I build the websites and tools the lab runs on.
Fauna Robotics Sprout
I work on Sprout, Amazon's home robot, with Grace Pan and Jaein Cha. We are building a family-friendly, AI-driven character for the robot.
Robot Studio on the Web
I built the websites behind the lab's research.
Jekyll
Pages CMS
GitHub Actions
Lab sites
The Robot Studio lab site, the Robo Reflections reading group, and the HRI Design Retreat.
Course sites
ROB 340 and Design for Human-Robot Interaction.
Mediate
A tool that generates publication thumbnails and strips publisher-added pages.
Self-service maintenance
Pages CMS on top of Jekyll and GitHub Actions, so the lab can update its own pages.
Training
I taught PhD students, postdocs, and GSIs to maintain the sites themselves.
Information
At the University of Michigan School of Information, I build research software for health studies.
Type 1 Diabetes Family App
A React Native app for pediatric Type 1 Diabetes patients and their parents, deployed on iOS and Android.
React Native
Firebase
Dexcom Share API
Python Cloud Functions
Expo
Real-time sync
A child's logs and their parent's stay in step, and the app flags the days where the two disagree.
Glucose data
Readings come from the Dexcom Share API, with credentials held in the iOS Keychain and Android
Keystore.
Dual authentication
Role-based access that pairs a patient with a parent through custom invite codes.
Server-side validation
Python Cloud Functions check what the app sends and drive the Expo push notifications.
Deidentification
Protocols I wrote to strip personally identifiable information out of the research data.
Screen Time
I develop software and tutorials to help people reduce their screen time.
Provides tutorials on how to block any content on any device for yourself or your family.
Cold Turkey
Publications
Webel: Web Browsing Event Logger
Elijah Cantu and Gyunam Park
ICPM 2025: International Conference on Process Mining 2025 Demo Track
A Chromium extension that logs web browsing events for process mining analysis, capturing navigation patterns.
Chrome Extensions
Browser extensions and themes I build and maintain.
Task Bar for Canvas
A free, open-source fork of Tasks for Canvas that puts a to-do sidebar in Canvas, Blackboard, and D2L Brightspace.
Cooler Canvas
A free, open-source fork of Better Canvas that customizes Canvas with dark mode, themes, a GPA calculator, and reminders.
Google Search Web Filter
Redirects your Google searches to the Web filter, which contains text-based links to websites.
Grayscaler
Applies a grayscale filter to your included sites, tabs, or all sites, except those you excluded.
Ayu Mirage
A Chrome theme that dresses the browser in the ayu mirage palette, a muted dark background with warm accents.