About me

I am a third year PhD student in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. My research focuses on providing personalized sound awareness for people who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH), and takes a multifaceted approach that includes sound sensing & visualization, applied machine learning, and augmented & virtual reality. Much of this research has been published at premier HCI venues such as CHI, ASSETS, and UIST, and has received a best paper award and an honorable mention. My work is initiated by own personal experience as a hard of hearing individual, designed and developed by me and my wonderful collaborators, and evaluated by the DHH users at large. I am advised by Prof. Jon Froehlich and Prof. Leah Findlater who, combined, have unparalleled expertise in accessibility, design and HCI research.

Before starting at UW, I completed my masters from MIT Media Lab, where I received the Google Lime Scholarship. I also did a one year backpacking tour, during which I visited 21 countries and earned my scuba instructor certificate! Check out our recent autoethnography paper on my experiences as a hard of hearing traveler.

I am particularly motivated about deploying the technologies that we make. For example, my indoor navigation system for blind users was deployed in the National Science Museum in India for two years, and received extensive press coverage. I also continually use my augmented reality real-time captioning technology in my classes and group meetings. We are now working towards open source release of our smartwatch sound awareness app - stay tuned!

For questions, possible collaboration, or casual coffee, email me at djain [at] cs [dot] washington [dot] edu.