👋🏼 Good morning
I'm Arvind Srinivasan
Growing up in a creative household, art became my primary form of expression, allowing me to make sense of the world around me. However, my perspective on art shifted when I participated in high school competitions and realized that people often appreciated what they wanted to see. This realization sparked a fire, making me contemplate ways of creating something that transcended individual interpretation. Thus, I started my journey to create something that had both beauty and utility: software.
However, with every piece of software I wrote, I found my focus shifting from the tools of creation to the data they work on. During an internship at Tetrate, I proposed and implemented a way of dynamically tethering interfaces to API by applying principles of model-driven development. Building upon my original goal, this experience motivated me to look at data as a window to understand people who use my software.
Being forced to take a break due to the pandemic, I took the opportunity to reflect on my life and think about the kind of impact I wanted to leave behind for this world. With the goal of creating software that is accessible to everyone that empowers people to make informed decisions, I started diving into the world of open source creating a couple of well-recieved projects that were centered around accessibility. I instinctually knew that I was on the right path, but I also knew that I needed to learn more about the people I was building for.
To develop the much needed skills to do so, I began my Masters in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Maryland. During my studies, I learnt and applied Contextual Inquiry, Usability Testing, and Heuristic Evaluation to capture the mismatches in expectations across different levels of the advising workflow at the College of Information Studies and redesign the same. My horizons were further broadened when I had the opportunity to participate in a conference on the Future of Work in the Age of Intelligent Machines and present a poster at the VIS Conference based on my work with Dr. Niklas Elmqvist on visualizing tennis games through court-based visualizations using open-source data. The convergence of perspectives from academia and the industry I witnessed at these conferences strengthened my resolve to become one of the researchers who can bridge the gap and mobilize knowledge between the two.
As a Graduate Research Assistant at the OASIS Lab, I designed and developed multiple prototypes for a sociotechnical system that aimed to facilitate this mobilisation of knowledge by connecting people through analogical sensemaking, supervised by Dr. Joel Chan. During this time, I also participated and assisted in the piloting and qualitative coding process of experiments on Computational Analogies. As a part of my Masters Thesis titled "Computational Support for Analogical Innovation", I had the opportunity to apply my research skills in an experimental setting. Through involved analysis of interviews, usage patterns and behaviors of over twenty participants across demographies, I explored how analogical triaging experiences could be designed for users to effectively identify, select and use potential leads that span across different domains and disciplines for solving their design problems.
Looking back at my journey so far, from a naive artist to a curious researcher passionate about creating accessible experiences for democratizing insights and mobilizing knowledge, I have come a long way. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had and the people I have met along the way who have helped me grow and become the person I am today. I am excited and eager to see what the future holds for me as I look forward to the next chapter of my life.
Thanks you for being patient and for taking the time reading to my story so far. While I plan to keep this page updated with my recent reflections and accomplishments, you can skip on the fluff by clicking the button that gives you a summary. I also plan on keeping my Curriculum Vitae updated and ready for download when needed.