About

I am on the job market for academic positions in 2024-2025.

I am a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researcher who works with communities to explore the interplay of technology and marginality.

My research advances disability justice as a lens to critique and design inclusive AI experiences for marginalized communities. Some themes of my work include (1) determinants of technology access and adoption, (2) community values for design equity, and (3) work practices of marginalized communities emerging at socio-technical gaps. I am currently looking at (1) uncovering workplace inequities in AI-based employment systems for people with disabilities, and (2) re-imagining the design of accessible technologies for people with speech impairments using LLMs.

My research has appeared at premier HCI venues, including ACM CHI, CSCW, ASSETS, and FAccT, and has been recognized with Best Paper, Honorable Mention, and DEI awards. My work has also been featured by media outlets such as TechCrunch Perceptron, MLive, Times of India, and Knowledge at Wharton. I have received generous support from the NSF, Google Research, the Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility, and the Michigan Rackham Graduate School. I have benefited from community relationships with Unity in our Community Timebank, Covenant Healthcare, and Vision Empower Trust. My current partners are Maryland Department of IT, and the United Spinal Association.

I hold Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Information from the University of Michigan, where I was recognized as a Rackham Predoctoral Fellow. I hold a B.E. in Computer Science from Ramaiah Institute of Technology, India. I was a front-end developer in the software industry between 2010-13, and have had short research stints at Microsoft Research, Google Research, and NYU Abu Dhabi.

I am currently a Postdoc at the Values-Centered Artificial Intelligence (VCAI) initiative at the University of Maryland, College Park. I am affiliated with the NSF Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society (TRAILS) and the College of Information.

Vaishnav wearing a blue shirt against the backdrop of a blue sky and the pacific ocean.

EDUCATION

  1. Ph.D. in Information

    University of Michigan

  2. M.S. in Information

    University of Michigan

  3. B.S in Computer Science Engineering

    Ramaiah Institute of Technology

Research Interests

What I Do?

  • I study the role & limits of technology in advancing equitable and just futures
  • I examine how socio-technical arrangements, practices and affordances make technologies tick
  • I use participatory approaches to work with communities and build sustainable technologies

Themes

  • I explore barriers to technology access and how community-mediated scaffolding measures facilitate adoption
  • I understand how accessible technologies can align with socio-culturally diverse community values
  • I study the work-practices that emerge at technological 'tipping points' i.e. where technologies shift from states of access to inaccess

Publications

Vaishnav Kameswaran, Jerry Robinson, Nithya Sambasivan, Gaurav Aggarwal, Meredith Ringel Morris. 2024 (to appear). Help and the Social Construction of Access. Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '24).

Alicia K Williamson, Marcy G Antonio, Sage Davis, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Tawanna R Dillahunt, Lorraine R Buis, Tiffany C Veinot. 2024. Human technology intermediation to reduce cognitive load: understanding healthcare staff members’ practices to facilitate telehealth access in a Federally Qualified Health Center patient population. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA '24).

Marcy G Antonio, Alicia Williamson, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Ashley Beals, Elizabeth Ankrah, Shannon Goulet, Yucen Wang, Grecia Macias, Jade James-Gist, Lindsay K Brown, Sage Davis, Srijanani Pillai, Lorraine Buis, Tawanna Dillahunt, Tiffany C Veinot. 2023. Targeting Patients’ Cognitive Load for Telehealth Video Visits Through Student-Delivered Helping Sessions at a United States Federally Qualified Health Center: Equity-Focused, Mixed Methods Pilot Intervention Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR '23).

Vaishnav Kameswaran, Vidhya Yellareddy and Megh Marathe. 2023. Advocacy as Access Work: How People with Visual Impairments in India Gain Access to Digital Banking. Proceedings of ACM Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW '23).

Divya Ramesh, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Ding Wang and Nithya Sambasivan. 2022. How Platform-User Power Relations Shape Algorithmic Accountability: A Case Study of Instant Loan Platforms and Financially Stressed Users in India. In Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT '22).

Tawanna R Dillahunt, Juan F Maestre, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Erica Poon, John Osorio Torres, Mia Gallardo, Samantha E Rasmussen, Patrick C Shih, Alice Bagley, Samuel LA Young, Tiffany C Veinot. 2022. Trust, Reciprocity, and the Role of Timebanks as Intermediaries: Design Implications for Addressing Healthcare Transportation Barriers. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22).

Juan F. Maestre, Tawanna Dillahunt, Alec Andrew Theisz, Megan Furness, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Tiffany Veinot and Patrick C. Shih. 2021. Examining mobility among people living with HIV in rural areas. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21).

Maulishree Pandey, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Hrishikesh V Rao, Sile O'Modhrain and Steve Oney. 2021. Understanding Accessibility and Collaboration in Programming for People with Visual Impairments. Proceedings of ACM Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW '21).

Vaishnav Kameswaran and Joyojeet Pal. 2021. Ride-hailing as urban transit in the Global South: Evidence from India. Disability and the Developing World (Oxford University Press).

Vaishnav Kameswaran, Alexander Fiannaca, Melanie Kniesel, Amy Karlson, Ed Cutrell and Meredith Ringel Morris. 2020. Understanding In-Situ Use of Commonly Available Navigation Technologies by People with Visual Impairments. Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '20).

Vaishnav Kameswaran and Srihari Hulikal Muralidhar. 2019. Cash, Digital Payments and Accessibility - A Case Study from India. Proceedings of ACM Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW '20).

Robin N. Brewer and Vaishnav Kameswaran. 2019. Understanding Trust, Transportation, and Accessibility through Ridesharing. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19).

Vaishnav Kameswaran, Jatin Gupta, Joyojeet Pal, Sile O'Modhrain, Tiffany C. Veinot, Robin Brewer, Aakanksha Parameshwar, Vidhya Yellareddy and Jacki O'Neill. 2018. “We can go anywhere”: Understanding Independence through a Case Study of Ride-hailing Use by People with Visual Impairments in metropolitan India. In Proceedings of ACM Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW '18). Best Paper Award.

Vaishnav Kameswaran, Lindsey Cameron, and Tawanna R. Dillahunt. 2018. Support for Social and Cultural Capital Development in Real-time Ridesharing Services. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18).

Robin N. Brewer and Vaishnav Kameswaran. 2018. Understanding the Power of Control in Autonomous Vehicles for People with Vision Impairment. In Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '18).

Tawanna R. Dillahunt, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Desiree McLain, Minnie Lester, Delores Orr, and Kentaro Toyama. 2018. Entrepreneurship and the Socio-Technical Chasm in a Lean Economy. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18). Best Paper Honorable Mention.

Joyojeet Pal, Priyank Chandra, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Aakanksha Parameshwar, Sneha Joshi, and Aditya Johri. 2018. Digital Payment and Its Discontents: Street Shops and the Indian Government's Push for Cashless Transactions. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18).

Joyojeet Pal, Anjuli Dasika, Ahmad Hasan, Jackie Wolf, Nick Reid, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Purva Yardi, Allyson Mackay, Abram Wagner, Bhramar Mukherjee, Sucheta Joshi, Sujay Santra, and Priyamvada Pandey. 2017. Changing data practices for community health workers: Introducing digital data collection in West Bengal, India. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD '17).

Joyojeet Pal, Anandhi Viswanathan, Priyank Chandra, Anisha Nazareth, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Hariharan Subramonyam, Aditya Johri, Mark S. Ackerman, and Sile O'Modhrain. 2017. Agency in Assistive Technology Adoption: Visual Impairment and Smartphone Use in Bangalore. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17).

Tawanna R. Dillahunt, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Linfeng Li, and Tanya Rosenblat. 2017. Uncovering the Values and Constraints of Real-time Ridesharing for Low-resource Populations. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17).

Jasmine Hentschel, Samyukta Manjayya Sherugar, Rui Zhou, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Rajesh Chandwani, and Neha Kumar. 2017. Rice Today, Roti Tomorrow: Diets and Diabetes in Urban Indian Households. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17).