I am an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh working across HCI, participatory design, and public-interest technology. I study how communities, public institutions, and local organizations shape socio-technical systems together, especially in settings where care, decision-making, and accountability are already shared across many people and systems.
My research brings together participatory design, qualitative inquiry, and system-building to develop tools, infrastructures, and learning environments that support reflection, coordination, and more grounded technological change.
Current themes
Participation, power, and accountability. What does it mean to participate in design when the structures around you constrain what participation looks like? This thread runs through sustained work on assets-based design, participatory methods, and growing engagement with algorithm transparency and AI governance. With community partners, public institutions · Through co-design, qualitative inquiry, policy analysis
Reentry, recovery, and care infrastructures. Partnering with organizations in San Francisco and Pittsburgh that support people navigating reentry from incarceration. Building tools that integrate into existing processes rather than imposing new ones. With Project Rebound, West End POWER, Reimagine Reentry · In local service systems, community organizations
Learning, reflection, and socio-technical mediation. From integrated computational thinking in K-12 classrooms across Nepal, Virginia, and Texas, to examining socially responsible computing education and the political economy of computing pedagogy. With schools, university collaborators · Through curriculum design, field study, co-design
Selected work
Dignified reintegration. Long-term collaboration with an anti-trafficking organization in Nepal and survivors building lives on their own terms. Developed social photo-elicitation, voice-annotated web tools, and assets-based design from attending to existing strengths. With anti-trafficking organization, survivors · Through participatory design, qualitative fieldwork
Reentry support and digital literacy. Working with reentry organizations to integrate digital literacy into existing support programs, designing tools that serve people on their own terms rather than surveilling them. With Project Rebound (SFSU), Pittsburgh reentry organizations · Through co-design, prototyping
Computational thinking in K-12. Developing integrated computational thinking and science modules for middle school classrooms, deployed in Nepal, Virginia, and Texas. With schools, educators · Through curriculum design, simulation-building
Working together
I hold dual appointments in Information Culture and Data Stewardship (ICDS) and Computer Science (CS). Previously, I was on the faculty at San Francisco State University. I completed my Ph.D. at Virginia Tech, where my dissertation received the SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award.
Prospective students: I actively seek undergraduate and graduate students interested in participatory design, community-centered technology, or learning environments. If you are at Pitt, let’s talk. If considering graduate studies, reach out before applying.
Collaborators and partners: I welcome conversations with community organizations, public institutions, and researchers working on related questions.
aakash [at] pitt [dot] edu
