I'm Vedant Das Swain, a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in Human-Computer Interaction and Health Informatics at Northeastern University. I am mentored by Prof. Stephen Initlle and Prof. Varun Mishra. I am interested in improving workers' understandings of themselves by leveraging methods at the intersection of ubiquitous computing and computational social science.
Humans interact with technologies in many ways that are impreceptible to them. Since, computers and computing have begun to engulf people's reality, they provide a unique perspective to understand human behavior. In my research, I investigate applications of technologies embedded in everyday life as passive ---unobtrusive, continuous, and automatic--- sources of behavioral data. One facet of my research studies the ecological validity of passive sensing applications for analyzing human dynamics and informing interventions for wellbeing. A complementary facet of my research is to study the societal adoption of these passive sensing by critically inquiring how the data is generated, modelled, and situated among stakeholders. In particular, I investigate approaches to improve the future of work and campus life. My research has been published at top-tier computer science venues like CHI, CSCW, UbiComp/IMWUT, ACII, and IEEE CogMI. My publication at CHI 2022 won a Best Paper Honorable Mention award. I have also received individual awards, namely the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award at UbiComp 2022 and the GVU Foley Scholar Award. My research has been supported by IARPA, NSF, CDC, ORNL, and Semiconductor Research Corporation. I have also collaborated with Microsoft Research to make near-term impact in the fast-changing future of work.
In 2023, I received my PhD in Computer Science (specializing in Human-Computer Interaction) from Georgia Institute of Technology. I was co-advised by Prof. Munmun De Choudhury and Prof. Gregory D. Abowd. In 2018, I completed my MS in HCI from Georgia Tech. Before that, I earned my BTech in Computer Science & Engineering from IIIT-Delhi in 2016. Academics aside, Iām passionate about design and an occassional graphic designer. For me the sport to play has always been football ( or 'soccer', if you may) but I've also been playing badminton quite often. Apart from that I'm mostly lazing around, but what really gets me talking is comics and movies, so if you're strong with the Force, I'll know.