Hi there, I'm Aashaka!

Aashaka, an Indian woman with curly black hair, standing near cliffs at a beach, wearing a pink white and brown block sweater. I'm a PhD candidate at Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, co-advised by Dr. Jennifer Mankoff and Dr. Richard Ladner. Broadly, my research is in the area of accessibility and human-computer interaction. I like to explore ways in which technology and people can mediate access, particularly in communication contexts.

My dissertation work explores how we might better reflect multilingual and multimodal realities of d/DHH communication — signing, speaking, speechreading, writing, gesturing — in the study and design of communication accessibility technology. I'm increasingly curious about what it means to center the concept of languaging in this work, and how we might support minoritized access practices and fluidity of language use.

In 2020, I graduated from University of Delaware with Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and Cognitive Science, where I was advised by Dr. Debra Yarrington and Dr. Giovanna Morini. I'm also a UD Women's Golf Alumna!

News

Position Paper What We Talk About When We Talk about Culture accepted to ASSETS 2024 Workshop on Challenges and Considerations for Accessibility Research Across Cultures and Regions.
Honored to attend and deliver a keynote at the #DeafSafeAI Symposium on AI and Sign Language Interpreting!
Passed my Generals Examination: officially a PhD Candidate!
Position Paper Systemic Biases in Sign Language AI Research: A Deaf-Led Call to Reevaluate Research Agendas accepted to LREC-COLING 2024 Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages.
Honored to moderate a fireside chat with Patty Berne, Cofounder and Director of Sins Invalid on Disability Justice: Centering Intesectionality and Liberation!
Excited to share ASL Citizen: A Community-Sourced Dataset for Advancing Isolated Sign Language Recognition was accepted and presented at NeurIPS 2023!
Participated in the ASSETS 2023 Doctoral Consortium!
Excited to share Working at the Intersection of Race, Disability, and Accessibility was accepted and presented at ASSETS 2023!