Contact: rkarkar@umass.edu
Office: CSL E243

• Abhay Sheel Anand (co-advised with Deepak Ganesan)
• Itir Sayar (co-advised with VP Nguyen)
• Jeongah (Jasmine) Lee
• Sabrina Zaman Ishita
• Sidharth Kaliappan
• Qiuyue (Joy) Zhong

I am an Assistant Professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I co-direct the Health Tech for the People (HT4P) initiative and am part of the stakeholder engagement core of MassAITC.

My research focuses on using human-centered approaches to develop tools that enable people to collect, interact with, and use novel health data. Through these new health data experiences, I aim to empower individuals to actively engage with their personal health data, fostering informed self-advocacy and evidence-driven wellness decisions.

Broadly speaking, my current research spans four thrusts:

• Novel tools for chronic care. Understanding the individual, their environments, and their contexts towards end-to-end design and development of practical tools which enable collection of actionable health data in-the-wild.
• Making Personal Science accessible. Developing theory and tools to reduce barriers preventing people from adopting a data-centric approach to better understand and participate in their health and well-being.
• Developing new measures of health. Designing, capturing, and evaluating longitudinal baselines of health through novel data sources.
• Ethics and implementation of health technology. Critical examination of digital health technology and understanding of the role of design research in informing clinical practice.

I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Washington. I am receipient of the NSF CAREER award. I am a 2024 and 2025 STRIDE faculty fellow, 2024 PIT faculty fellow, and 2023 mHealth Training Institute fellow. My research has been recognized by CHI and DIS, and I have organized cross-disciplinary panels and discussions around tools for self-tracking at ICTD and QSC.

I am grateful to have my research supported by National Science Foundation, National Institute on Aging, and University of Massachusetts Amherst.