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Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow
Northeastern University


I’m Vedant Das Swain. I study digital applications, models, and infrastructures to change the way we work with the goal of improving worker mental health and ensuring sustainable performance.

Computing and AI is a major component of how we work. And how we work is a major component of our mental health. I believe that we need to redesign these digital technologies for work to move beyond task completion and production. We need to devise new tools that help workers manage their wellbeing, choose healthier behaviors, and even select better job roles. In my research, I take a human-centered approach by identifying the challenges and opportunities for societal adoption of intelligent systems for worker wellbeing; I leverage theories from organizational sciences to inform new behavioral models of understanding worker mental health; and I investigate novel digital interventions and reflection applications for better work behaviors. Together, my studies reveal the importance of often ignored social dynamics at work and propose novel solutions to empower workers to take better decisions regarding their work goals.

I have authored several papers at top-tier venues for Human-Centered Computing, including CHI, CSCW, UbiComp/IMWUT. My papers have received awards at CHI 2022 (top 5%) and CHI 2024 (top 1%). I have also been honored with the Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award and the GVU Foley Scholar Award. My research has been supported by IARPA, NSF, CDC, ORNL, and Semiconductor Research Corporation. I serve as the lead PI on grants from NIDA/NIH and Microsoft.

I will be joining NYU Tandon School of engineering as an Assistant Professor in the fall (details soon). Currently, I’m a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in Human-Computer Interaction and Personal Health Informatics at Northeastern University. I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology, where I was co-advised by Prof. Munmun De Choudhury and Prof. Gregory D. Abowd. I completed my M.S. in Human Computer Interaction from Georgia Tech and my B.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering from IIIT-Delhi.

Recent News

[04/27/25] Attending CHI 2025 in Yokohama
[03/18/25] Paper on empathetic AI co-pilot for emotional work accepted to CHI 2025
[11/22/24] Paper on rhythms of SDEs in hybrid work accepted to TSE
[11/14/24] Attended CSCW 2024 in Costa Rica
[10/19/24] Attended Digital Health Summit at Dartmouth
[10/11/24] Attended at Future of HAI & UbiComp Workshop at UNSW, Sydney
[10/08/24] Attended UbiComp/ISWC 2024 in Melbourne
[07/09/24] Paper on simulating mental health ground truth accepted to ACII 2024
[06/16/24] Attended HCIC 2024 Annual Meeting
[05/11/24] Presented at CHI 2024 in Honolulu

Selected Publications

For an up to date and complete list, visit my Google Scholar profile

2025

AI on My Shoulder: Supporting Emotional Labor in Front-Office Roles with an LLM-based Empathetic Coworker
Vedant Das Swain, Qiuyue Zhong, Jash Rajesh Parekh, Yechan Jeon, Roy Zimmermann, Mary Czerwinski, Jina Suh, Varun Mishra, Koustuv Saha, Javier Hernandez
CHI 2025 | Link | PDF

2024

Triple Peak Day: Work Rhythms of Software Developers in Hybrid Work
Javier Hernandez, Vedant Das Swain, Jina Suh, Daniel McDuff, Judith Amores, Gonzalo Ramos, Kael Rowan, Brian Houck, Shamsi Iqbal, Mary Czerwinski
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering | Link
Teacher, Trainer, Counsel, Spy: How Generative AI can Bridge or Widen the Gaps in Worker-Centric Digital Phenotyping of Wellbeing
Vedant Das Swain, Koustuv Saha
CHIWORK 2024 | Link | PDF
Sensible and Sensitive AI for Worker Wellbeing: Factors that Inform Adoption and Resistance for Information Workers
Vedant Das Swain, Lan Gao, Abhirup Mondal, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
CHI 2024 | Link | PDF

2023

Leveraging WiFi Network Logs to Infer Student Collocation and its Relationship with Academic Performance
Vedant Das Swain, Hyeokhyen Kwon, Sonia Sargolzaei, Bahador Saket, Mehrab Bin Morshed, Kathy Tran, Devashru Patel, Yexin Tian, Joshua Philipose, Yulai Cui, Thomas Plötz, Munmun De Choudhury, Gregory D. Abowd
EPJ Data Sc. 2023 | Link | PDF
Empirical networks for localized COVID-19 interventions using WiFi infrastructure at university campuses
Vedant Das Swain, Jiajia Xie, Maanit Madan, Sonia Sargolzaei, James Cai, Munmun De Choudhury, Gregory D. Abowd, Lauren N. Steimle, B. Aditya Prakash
Frontiers DH 2023 | Link | PDF
Algorithmic Power or Punishment: Information Worker Perspectives on Passive Sensing Enabled AI Phenotyping of Performance and Wellbeing
Vedant Das Swain, Lan Gao, William Wood, Srikruthi C Matli, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
CHI 2023 | Link | PDF
Focused Time Saves Nine: Evaluating Computer-Assisted Protected Time for Hybrid Information Work
Vedant Das Swain, Javier Hernandez, Brian Houck, Koustuv Saha, Jina Suh, Ahad Chaudhry, Tenny Cho, Wendy Guo, Shamsi Iqbal, Mary Czerwinski
CHI 2023 | Link | PDF

2022

Semantic Gap in Predicting Mental Wellbeing through Passive Sensing
Vedant Das Swain, Victor Chen, Shrija Mishra, Stephen M. Mattingly, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
CHI 2022 | Link | PDF
Supporting the Contact Tracing Process with WiFi Location Data: Opportunities and Challenges
Kaely Hall, Dong Whi Yoo, Wenrui Zhang, Mehrab Bin Morshed, Vedant Das Swain, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury, Alex Endert, John Stasko, Jennifer G Kim
CHI 2022 | Link
Two Birds with One Phone: The Role of Mobile Use in the Daily Practices of Remote Information Work
Vedant Das Swain, Shane Williams, Adam Fourney, Shamsi T Iqbal
CHIWORK 2022 | Link | PDF

2021

Person-Centered Predictions of Psychological Constructs with Social Media Contextualized by Multimodal Sensing
Koustuv Saha, Ted Grover, Stephen M. Mattingly, Vedant Das Swain, Pranshu Gupta, Gonzalo J. Martinez, Pablo Robles-Granda, Gloria Mark, Aaron Striegel, Munmun De Choudhury
IMWUT 2021 | Link

2020

Social and Ubiquitous Technologies for Remote Worker Wellbeing and Productivity in a Post-Pandemic World
Vedant Das Swain, Koustuv Saha, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
NFW 2020 | Link | PDF
Modeling Organizational Culture with Workplace Experiences Shared on Glassdoor
Vedant Das Swain, Koustuv Saha, Manikanta D. Reddy, Hemang Rajvanshy, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
CHI 2020 | Link | PDF

2019

A Multisensor Person-Centered Approach to Understand the Role of Daily Activities in Job Performance with Organizational Personas
Vedant Das Swain, Koustuv Saha, Hemang Rajvanshy, Anusha Sirigiri, Julie M. Gregg, Suwen Lin, Gonzalo J. Martinez, Stephen M. Mattingly, Shayan Mirjafari, Raghu Mulukutla, Subigya Nepal, Kari Anne Nies, Manikanta D. Reddy, Pablo Robles-Granda, Andrew T. Campbell, Nitesh V. Chawla, Sidney K. D'Mello, Anind K. Dey, Kaifeng Jiang, Qiang Liu, Gloria Mark, Ed Moskal, Aaron Striegel, Louis Tay, Gregory D. Abowd, Munmun De Choudhury
IMWUT 2019 | Link | PDF
Differentiating Higher and Lower Job Performers in the Workplace Using Mobile Sensing
Shayan Mirjafari, Kizito Masaba, Ted Grover, Weichen Wang, W., Pino Audia, Andrew T. Campbell, Nitesh V. Chawla, Vedant Das Swain, Munmun De Choudhury, Anind K. Dey, Sidney K. D'Mello, Ge Gao, Julie M. Gregg, Krithika Jagannath, Kaifeng Jiang, Suwen Lin, Qiang Liu, Gloria Mark, Gonzalo J. Martinez, Stephen M. Mattingly, Edward Moskal, Raghu Mulukutla, Subigya Nepal, Kari Nies, Manikanta D. Reddy, Pablo Robles-Granda, Koustuv Saha, Anusha Sirigiri, Aaron Striegel
IMWUT 2019 | Link
The Tesserae Project: Large-Scale, Longitudinal, In Situ, Multimodal Sensing of Information Workers
Stephen M. Mattingly, Julie M. Gregg, Pino Audia, Ayse Elvan Bayraktaraglu, Andrew T. Campbell, Nitesh V. Chawla, Vedant Das Swain, Munmun De Choudhury, Sidney K. D'Mello, Anind K. Dey, Ge Gao, Krithika Jagannath, Kaifeng Jiang, Suwen Lin, Qiang Liu, Gloria Mark, Gonzalo J. Martinez, Kizito Masaba, Shayan Mirjafari, Edward Moskal, Raghu Mulukutla, Kari Nies, Manikanta D. Reddy, Pablo Robles-Granda, Koustuv Saha, Anusha Sirigiri, Aaron Striegel
CHI 2019 | Link
Birds of a Feather Clock Together: A Study of Person-Organization Fit Through Latent Activity Routines
Vedant Das Swain, Manikanta D. Reddy, Kari Anne Nies, Louis Tay, Munmun De Choudhury, Gregory D. Abowd
CSCW 2019 | Link | PDF
Imputing Missing Social Media Data Stream in Multisensor Studies of Human Behavior
Koustuv Saha, Manikanta D. Reddy, Vedant Das Swain, Julie M. Gregg, Ted Grover, Suwen Lin, Gonzalo J. Martinez, Stephen M. Mattingly, Shayan Mirjafari, Raghu Mulukutla, Kari Anne Nies, Pablo Robles-Granda, Anusha Sirigiri, Dong Whi Yoo, Pino Audia, Andrew T. Campbell, Nitesh V. Chawla, Sidney K. D'Mello, Anind K. Dey, Kaifeng Jiang, Qiang Liu, Gloria Mark, Ed Moskal, Aaron Striegel, Munmun De Choudhury
ACII 2019 | Link

2018

Students’ Experiences with Ecological Momentary Assessment Tools to Report on Emotional Well-being
Larry Chan, Vedant Das Swain, Christina Kelly, Kaya de Barbaro, Gregory D. Abowd, Lauren Wilcox
IMWUT 2018 | Link | PDF

Students

My fellowship allows me to directly supervise, and even fund, student researchers on projects where I am the Principal Investigator. If you are interested to work with me, drop me an email sharing your expertise and what interests you about my research.

Collaborators