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Research Interests

HCI, CSCW, Labor, Social Computing

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. ​

 

I study how technologies shape workers' identities & practices,
designing ways to improve their work outcomes in the United States and globally. I take a mixed-methods approach. You can read my work in leading conferences, including CHI, CSCW, ICTD, & COMPASS.  All of my research has been generously funded by Engaged, Einaudi, and Mozilla grants.

I also actively mentor under-resourced students and provide research assistance for non-profits. Please feel free to send me an email at varanasi[dot]r at nyu [dot] edu.

Hello!

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UPDATES

  • May'24: Presented the final piece of my dissertation at CHI'24. Read it here.

  • Apr'24: Gave a guest lecture around Gig Work in the department of Technology, Culture and Society, NYU. 

  • Feb'24: Contributed to an NSF planning grant submission. My first.

  • Dec'23: Registration chair for ACM GROUP'25.

  • Nov'23: Finished my PhD! You can read my dissertation here.

  • Jul'23: New paper at COMPASS'23 around post-pandemic teacher support. My first as a mentor!

  • Apr'23: New postdoc position at NYU Tandon School from Jan. New chapter!

  • Feb'23: Gave invited talk at the department of Informatics, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)

  • Jan'23: New publication @CHI'23 around Responsible AI challenges encountered by practitioners in big tech.

  • Oct'22: Received the prestigious DLI fellowship.

  • Apr'22:  Will be working as student research intern at Google in responsible AI team starting this summer

LATEST WORK

Conference paper (ACM CHI'24)

This paper presents Saharaline, an intervention designed to provide collective social support for teachers in low-income schools. Implemented as a WhatsApp-based helpline, Saharaline enables teachers to reach out for personalized, long-term assistance with a wide range of problems and stressors, including pedagogical, emotional, and technological challenges. Depending on the support needed, teachers’ requests are routed to appropriate domain experts— staff employed by educational non-profit organizations who understand teachers’ on-the-ground realities—who offer localized and contextualized assistance. Via a three-month exploratory deployment with 28 teachers in India, we show how Saharaline’s design enabled a collective of diverse education experts to craft and deliver localized solutions that teachers could incorporate into their practice. We conclude by reflecting on the efficacy of our intervention in low-resource work contexts and provide recommendations to enhance collective social support interventions similar to Saharaline.

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