Nimmi Rangaswamy

About

I am currently Professor at the Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems, Indian Institute of Information Technology, IIIT, Hyderabad. I bring an anthropological lens in understanding the impacts of AI research and praxis. I teach courses on Human Computer Interaction, Technology and Development and Social Science Research Methodologies.
At the Kohli Centre on Intelligent systems, IIITH, my research projects encompass a variety of interdisciplinary research domains - Augmented Reality, Biometric technology, Education technology, under the broad rubric of AI for social good. One of my projects studied the socio-economic impacts of work automation, focusing on the Indian off-shored IT industry. I also mentor students in the area of computational Humanities with a focus on social media analytics.
I worked for a decade as an adjunct professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad where I lectured courses on Human Computer Interaction, Ethnographic Design, and the Sociology of digital societies.
I have been appointed Chair, Advisory Board United Nations University – Macau- Digital Technology for Development since January 2024. I have been serving on the Advisory Board United Nations University – Macau for the past 5 years.

Earlier, I was Area Manager, Human Interactions Research Team, at Xerox Research Centre Bangalore. Since early 2014, I built and manage a research team of designers, social scientists and HCI professional to infuse user-centric research to Xerox products. I mentor my team to bring ethnographic and qualitative perspectives in envisioning and building future products for Xerox. Human Computer Interaction is a new area of research at Xerox that seeks to throw light on diverse technological concepts and models in the field of applied human computation research. The human interaction lab studies people and their use of technology at work and everyday utilities. The research lab aims to improve the methods of studying person-to-person interactions in service systems, work routines and other broader areas of human interaction. At the India Research Centre, the human interaction lab builds research competencies in pivotal areas such as accessible education, health, and banking among others to advance and incorporate a leading-edge business vision.
My job at Microsoft Research was a combination of theoretical analysis and ethnographic field research to understand technology use in developing countries. These are studies of patterns of technology adoption in various social contexts and spaces in India, ranging from middle class technology consumption to the mobile internet and Facebook usages among urban slum youth. I conduct, co- ordinate, analyze and publish research at top tier conferences and journals. My job also required giving regular lectures at national and international academic institutions and industry.
I was an assistant-editor with the prestigious Economic and Political Weekly tasked as content editor aiding the process of digitizing their web site and the archives.
From 1993 to 1997 I won a national University Grants Commission fellowship to pursue doctoral research
From 1987 to 1993 I was a Master of philosophy student at the Delhi school of Economics, Department of Sociology and a lecturer at the Delhi University and the Mumbai University

Employment

• International Institute of Information technology Hyderabad Professor
  2017 - Present

Education

Education history is unavailable.

Projects & Funding

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Publications

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