About


Welcome! I am Shashank Ahire, a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover, under the supervision of Prof. Michael Rohs. My research focuses on developing conversational agents to enhance the health and well-being of knowledge workers. Unhealthy work habits in this demographic can lead to serious conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic illnesses. I believe conversational agents can play a crucial role in providing proactive health reminders to combat issues like sedentary behavior, stress, and dehydration during work.

I completed my Master of Research (MRes) in Computing and Future Interaction Technologies at Swansea University, guided by Prof. Matt Jones. My master's research centered on "Designing a Smart Speaker for Emergent Users: Human-AI Symbiosis," addressing the challenges AI-powered smart speakers face in understanding emergent user requests. I implemented a Human-AI integration approach to enhance the responsiveness and efficiency of smart speakers for marginalized users in India.

Additionally, I spent 4.5 years as a Research Associate under Prof. Anirudha Joshi at IDC IIT Bombay. My research there focused on text input, accessibility, and emerging technologies. I've collaborated on research papers presented at various international conferences such as CHI, MobileHCI, INTERACT, and IndiaHCI.

I am also an active participant in the review process for conferences like CHI, CUI, IndiaHCI, and the IMWUT Journal.

Updates

  • October 2024: Excited to be a part of ACM CUI 2025 organizing committee.
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  • August 2024: Full paper: "H2Office: A Smartwatch and Water-Gauge System for Facilitating Hydration of Knowledge Workers" is accepted at EAI Pervasive Health Conference
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  • July 2024: Full paper: "WorkFit: Designing Proactive Voice Assistance for the Health and Well-Being of Knowledge Workers" is published at CUI 2024 conference.
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  • July 2024: Poster: "Dual-Mode Interventions: Giving Agency to Knowledge Workers in Proactive Health Interventions" is published at CUI 2024 conference.
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  • May 2024: Today, on May 5th, 2024, marks my 10-year milestone as a researcher in the field of HCI
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  • May 2024: Organized and conducted CUI@CHI 2024: Building Trust in CUIs — From Design to Deployment workshop at CHI 2024
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  • April 2024: Interviewed & Rejected at Google, Munich for an User Experince Researcher internship position.
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  • December 2023: Future Health Lab initiative chose my FitatDesk concept as a promising startup idea.
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  • April 2023: I will be intervewing at Google, Zurich for an internship position.
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  • November 2022: Finally took time out to publish by master's research Designing a Smart Speaker for Emergent Users: Human Plus AI Response . It was accepted at IndiaHCI'22 conference.
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  • May 2022: Full paper Ubiquitous Work Assistant: Synchronizing a Stationary and a Wearable Conversational Agent to Assist Knowledge Work was published at CHIWORK'22 conference.
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  • April 2022: I will be supervising Master student Miquel Llaneras. Miquel is an Erasmus fellow under semester exchange program from Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Barcelona.
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  • August 2021: Full paper How Compatible is Alexa for Dual-task? — Design Recommendations for Building Dual-task Compatible Intelligent Personal Assistance was accepted at 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI '21).
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    Portfolio

    • All
    • Voice Interface
    • HCI4D
    • Text-Entry

    Publications

    WorkFit: Designing Proactive Voice Assistance for the Health and Well-Being of Knowledge Workers
    Shashank Ahire, Simon Benjamin, Michael Rohs
    CUI '24:Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces
    Dual-Mode Interventions: Giving Agency to Knowledge Workers in Proactive Health Interventions
    Shashank Ahire, Saeid Othman, Michael Rohs
    CUI '24:Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces
    Ubiquitous Work Assistant:Synchronizing a Stationary and a Wearable Conversational Agent to Assist Knowledge Work
    Shashank Ahire, Michael Rohs, Simon Benjamin
    CHIWORK '22: In Proceedings of Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work
    Designing a Smart Speaker for Emergent Users: Human Plus AI Response
    Shashank Ahire
    IndiaHCI '22: In Proceedings of the 13th Indian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
    How Compatible is Alexa for Dual-task? — Design Recommendations for Building Dual-task Compatible Intelligent Personal Assistance
    Shashank Ahire, Aaron Priegnitz, Oguz Önbas, Michael Rohs, Wolfgang Nejdl
    HAI '21: In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction
    Tired of Wake Words? Moving Towards Seamless Conversations with Intelligent Personal Assistants
    Shashank Ahire, Michael Rohs
    CUI '20: In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces
    Streetwise: Smart Speakers vs Human Help in Public Slum Settings
    Jennifer Pearson, Simon Robinson, Thomas Reitmaier, Matt Jones, Shashank Ahire, Anirudha Joshi, Deepak Sahoo, Nimish Maravi, Bhakti Bhikne
    CHI '19: In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Sustainabot – Exploring the Use of Everyday Foodstuffs as Output and Input for and with Emergent Users

    Simon Robinson, Jennifer Pearson, Mark D Holton, Shashank Ahire, Matt Jones
    CHI '19: In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Revisiting “Hole in the Wall Computing”: Private Smart Speakers and Public Slum Settings
    Simon Robinson, Jennifer Pearson, Shashank Ahire, Rini Ahirwar, Bhakti Bhikne, Nimish Maravi, Matt Jones
    CHI '18: In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Make Yourself at Phone: Reimagining Mobile Interaction Architectures With Emergent Users
    Simon Robinson, Jennifer Pearson, Thomas Reitmaier, Shashank Ahire, Matt Jones
    CHI '18: In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Performance of Accessible Indic Gesture-based Keyboard

    Pabba Anu Bharath, Charudatta Jadhav, Shashank Ahire, Manjiri Joshi, Rini Ahirwar, Anirudha Joshi
    Interact '17: IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
    Chameleon Devices: Investigating More Secure and Discreet Mobile Interactions via Active Camouflaging

    Jennifer Pearson, Simon Robinson, Matt Jones, Anirudha Joshi, Shashank Ahire, Deepak Sahoo, Sriram Subramanian
    CHI '17 Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    Does prediction really help in Marathi text input?: empirical analysis of a longitudinal study
    Girish Dalvi, Shashank Ahire, Nagraj Emmadi, Manjiri Joshi, Anirudha Joshi, Sanjay Ghosh, Prasad Ghone, Narendra Parmar
    MobileHCI '16: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
    Shift+Tap or Tap+LongPress?: The Upper Bound of Typing Speed on InScript
    Sanjay Ghosh, Anirudha Joshi, Manjiri Joshi, Nagraj Emmadi, Girish Dalvi, Shashank Ahire, Swati Rangale
    CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    A Protocol to Evaluate Virtual Keyboards for Indian Languages

    Girish Dalvi, Shashank Ahire, Nagraj Emmadi, Manjiri Joshi, Nirav Malsettar, Debasis Samanta, Devendra Jalihal, Anirudha Joshi
    IndiaHCI'15: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on HCI, IndiaHCI 2015
    Interaction design for Indian needs lab, IIT Bombay
    Shashank Ahire, Girish Dalvi, Manjiri Joshi, Anirudha Joshi
    Interactions: Volume 22 Issue 5, September-October 2015
    Better Together: Disaggregating Mobile Services for Emergent Users
    Simon Robinson, Jennifer Pearson, Matt Jones, Anirudha Joshi, Shashank Ahire
    MobileHCI '17: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
    Media player for Semi-illiterate users
    Shashank Ahire, Charudatt Surve, Bharat Prajapati, Yogesh Parulekar
    IndiaHCI '14: Proceedings of the India HCI 2014 Conference on Human Computer Interaction