Carissa Ott

your fav

Changing how the world learns with AI.

hello world!

I'm Carissa A cognitive scientist and software engineer at Duolingo, reinventing how people learn.

01Work

I ship research-backed products that help people build real skill.

both at scale and for my own workflows

At scale Swift · iOS · constraint solver

Cross Math

Learning products used by millions.

A math puzzle game inside the Duolingo iOS app — built to turn practice into measurable skill.

100M+
global learners
1 summer
prototype to production
Swift Algorithms Product

The decision: generate every puzzle live instead of authoring them — a constraint-programming algorithm keeps the numbers honest while the backend produces fresh puzzle shapes in real time, and the Swift UI flexes across every iOS device.

The number: CEO-approved at prototype review, live for 100M+ users — all inside one intern summer.

Live in Duolingo on iOS — 100M+ users

For my own workflows Electron · TypeScript · in progress

Waddl

I build the tools I wish existed.

A cozy desktop home for agentic coding — designed to make an AI's work legible so a person can follow it, judge it, and learn alongside it.

See more
Waddl — a small desktop window showing Claude Code narrating its work
02Research

I measure how people learn

I trained as a cognitive scientist before I wrote production code. As a published first-author researcher, I design mixed-methods studies and build validated measures of how people develop skill — and bring that same lens to every product.

See research
03Principles

How I build

  1. Design with empathy

  2. Ground UX in research

  3. Build worlds with consistent laws

See all my work
04Design system

I design in systems

Everything above runs on these tokens. Toggle the theme to watch them remap!

--bg-defaultpage background --surface-defaultcards, panels --border-defaulthairlines --text-primaryheadings, body --accent-defaultbuttons, highlights --accent-2-defaultawards, metrics --ease-outhover easing --duration-fasthover timing
Explore the full design system
05Experiments

I explore delightful interactions

I spend every day inside developer tools. The small interactions are what bring that world to life.

Animated diff

try it Click “Apply the diff”, watch the edit play, then run it backward.

Go to the playground
06Every angle

I've seen learning from every side

Teacher, cognitive scientist, and builder — I've come at how people learn from every direction.

The classroom

I taught kids to code

Curated a Python curriculum and taught 50+ middle-schoolers hands-on in the classroom.

The lab

I studied how we learn

Researched how people acquire language, speech, and code through a cognitive-science lens across two UCLA labs.

The paper

I published the research

Designed and led empirical research studies, publishing as first author in peer-reviewed venues.

The conversation

I led the AI-in-class debate

Led discussions on the role of AI in education, exploring where it can support learning and where human thinking should remain central.

The platform

Now I build it at scale

Building educational products at Duolingo, the world's most-used education app, and researching how we can best leverage AI to better serve learners.

07Contact

Building thoughtful tools for how people learn with AI.

If that resonates, let's talk! :)