About


Hi, I am Shashank Ahire, a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover, supervised by Prof. Michael Rohs. My research interest is in developing conversational agents to improve the health and well-being of knowledge workers. Unhealthy work patterns among knowledge workers can lead to conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic illnesses. I believe that conversational agents can be effective in providing proactive health reminders to address issues like sedentary behavior, stress, and dehydration during work.

I pursued my Master of Research (MRes) in Computing and Future Interaction Technologies at Swansea University under the guidance of Prof. Matt Jones. During my master's program, I conducted research on "Designing a Smart Speaker for Emergent Users: Human-AI Symbiosis." Previous research has demonstrated that AI-powered smart speakers often struggle to understand emergent user requests. To address this challenge, I implemented a Human-AI integration approach to improve the responsiveness and efficiency of smart speakers, particularly for emergent (marginalized) users in India.

Additionally, I served as a Research Associate for 4.5 years under the supervision of Prof. Anirudha Joshi at IDC IIT Bombay. During my tenure, my research focused on Text Input, Accessibility, and Emerging technologies. Through collaborations, I have contributed to research papers presented at various international conferences, including CHI, MobileHCI, INTERACT, and IndiaHCI.

Furthermore, I regularly participate in the review process for papers submitted to conferences such as CHI, CUI, IndiaHCI, and the IMWUT Journal.

Updates

  • December 2023: Future Health Lab initiative chose my FitatDesk concept as a promising startup idea.
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  • June 2023: I will be presenting my research at Doctorial Consortium at CHIWORK 2023 and CUI 2023 conference.
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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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  • April 2022: I will be assisting for the course 'Mobile Interaction' during Summer semester 2022.
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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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  • July 2021: Succcessfully completed a course on Promotion plus (PhD and beyond).
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  • July 2020: Provocation paper Tired of Wake Words? Moving Towards Seamless Conversations with Intelligent Personal Assistants was published at CUI 2020.
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    Portfolio

    • All
    • Voice Interface
    • HCI4D
    • Text-Entry

    Publications

    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
    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
    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