Doctoral Candidate
Computing and Information Science
| Rochester Institute of Technology 1 Lomb Memorial Dr Rochester, NY 14623 |
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| (585) 210-7785 | |
| sh2513 [at] rit [dot] edu | |
| Google Scholar | |
| @SaadHassann | |
| @saadhassann | |
Short Bio. I am a final-year Ph.D. student in Computing and Information Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology, and a graduate research assistant at the Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research and Linguistic and Assistive Technologies Laboratory. I am fortunate to be advised by Dr. Matt Huenerfauth. In 2022, I was recognized as one of the five recipients of Duolingo's 2022 dissertation research grant (News). Starting in fall 2023, I will be a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at Tulane University!
Research. One one side, I use Accessibility, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and AI insights to help build sign language technologies [ASSETS 2022, CHI 2022a, TACCESS 2021] and enhance captioning [CHI EA 2023, CHI 2022b, W4A 2021]. On the other side, I leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and qualitative research methods to investigate ableist biases and anti-social behaviors [EMNLP 2021]. See publications section for full list of publications, demos, and invited talks.
Industry Experience. I am currently a Student Researcher at Google AI, where I work with the Sign Language Understanding Group (SLUG). During summer and fall 2022, I was a Research Scientist Intern at Meta Reality Labs, where I worked with the audio experiences team. Between May 2021 and May 2022, I was a student researcher and a research intern at Google Research with the Perception team. During my undergrad, I was an intern in the ACM Summer Internship Program.
Teaching. I have been fortunate to be taught by life-changing teachers throughout my schooling, who have inspired me to pursue teaching and research. I have had many opportunities to teach during my graduate and undergraduate degree programs. I would like to see more diverse groups of people become active in STEM fields, and I think diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are important towards that. See teaching section for more details about my teaching experience.
Undergrad. Prior to starting at RIT, I did my undergrad at Lahore University of Management Sciences, where I got my Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Computer Science.
** Beyond research the things that matter to me the most are political activism, sustainability, and human welfare. I also enjoy reading fiction and non-fiction books, creating Spotify playlists, and occassionally painting and creating digital art.
I'm always looking to work with new researchers and talk about shared academic or non-academic interests so please drop me an email.
I also hold the position of Communication Chair within Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research. I am tasked with keeping the 40+ team of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students organized by setting weekly agendas and inviting extnernal speakers to our meetings. Please drop me an email if you are interested in presenting your work to the group .
News
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April 21, 2023
I will be attending CHI 2023 in-person in Hamburg. I will also be attending Web4ALL 2023 conference in Austin Texas after CHI. -
April 11, 2023
I accepted a position as a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Tulane University’s Computer Science department! I will start in fall 2023. -
January 15, 2023
I will serving on the organizing committee and programme committee of ASSETS 2023. -
September 18, 2022
1 technical paper and 1 poster accepted at ASSETS 2022! The technical paper was nominated for the best paper award. I will be attending ASSETS 2022 in-person! Find the details of my two papers in publications section. -
July 15, 2022
I was recognized as one of the five receipients of Duolingo's dissertation award & grant. I am interested in collaborating on ed-tech research on second language acquisiion. Please feel free to reach out if you are interested.