I am a fourth year PhD student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. I work at the intersection of accessibility and AI, particularly on sound sensing and feedback to support d/Deaf or hard of hearing people. My research work is published at the most selective HCI venues such as CHI, UIST, and ASSETS, has received multiple best paper awards and honorable mentions, and has drawn the attention of industry research such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple. I am advised by Prof. Jon Froehlich and Prof. Leah Findlater.
Before starting my PhD, I completed by masters from MIT Media Lab, bachelors from IIT Delhi, and took a gap year to backpack 21 countries. Through publishing a critical reflection of my travel experiences as a hard of hearing individual, I introduced the unique method of auto-ethnography to the field of accessible computing. My biggest pride is the indoor navigation system for visually impaired users which was installed in Indian National Science Museum for two years (75,000+ users). Our recently released sound recognition app, SoundWatch, is used by more than 400 deaf and hard of hearing people worldwide.
Besides professional life, I am a scuba instructor and I conduct DIY workshops—so far, I have taught in 11 one-week workshops organized in six low-income countries. Atleast two teams from these workshops have continued their projects and turned them into multinational companies.
Connect with me on email djain [at] uw [dot] edu or twitter.
Note: I am advocate of open science and research. Write to me and I will give you all my data, methods, etc.
Mar 12: Invited talk on Sound Sensing and Feedback at BITS Pilani.
Feb 18: Invited talk on SoundWatch at UW Speech and Hearing Center.
Jan 04: Started research internship at Google!
Dec 11: Passed my general exam! My talk is here.
Nov 19: Invited talk on NavGrad at Microsoft.
Oct 31: SoundWatch featured in several popular tech news sites, including Forbes.
Oct 28: SoundWatch wins the best artifact award at ASSETS 2020!
Oct 28: NavGrad receives the best paper nominee and the most popular project award at ASSETS 2020!
Oct 28: SoundWatch app released to the public!
Oct 26: Two talks at ASSETS 2020.
Oct 15: Invited talk on NavGrad at UW CSE Colloquia.
Video of In-Home Sound Awareness System for DHH Users for UW CSE visit day showcase.
Read more →Project Amphibian: a virtual reality scuba diving simulator, my MS thesis at MIT and UIST 2016 paper.
Read more →Video of HoloSound AR Sound Sensing and Feedback for the ASSETS Poster.
Read more →A one-week intense design and innovation workshop that I led in the remote rural area of Kutch, India.
View on vimeo →Our future vision for interactive digitally encoded construction materials, presented at CHI 2016.
Read more →A series of experiments to leverage sensorial nature of "food" for making next-generation digital prototypes.
Read more →Project GlassEar: supplementary video to our CHI 2015 paper presented in Seoul, Korea April 18-23.
Read more →
