Hi! I'm Divya Ramesh.

I'm a PhD candidate in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. I examine the social, ethical, and design implications of AI in high stakes decision-making domains. Specifically, my research identifies the sociotechnical components necessary to enable accountability and ensure responsible AI innovation.

My research interests sit at the intersections of human-computer interaction, public interest technology, and responsible AI. I am drawn to research questions that center the perspectives of marginalized communities in the discourse on Responsible AI.

I have published in both HCI and AI venues such as ACM CHI, FAccT, DIS, TOCHI and AAMAS. My work has received a Best Paper nomination and Pragnesh Jay Modi Best Student Paper award. I have also contributed to public conversations via popular media outlets such as CNBC TV18 and Techcrunch which influenced policy outcomes for Google in 2023. I am a 2023-24 Quad Fellow (an initiative of the governments of Australia, India, Japan and the US).

Before starting my PhD, I led the research and development efforts at CloudSight Inc. At Cloudsight, I architected the company's first human-AI interaction pipeline for analyzing visual content in real-time, powering many visual recognition apps including the award-winning accessibility app, TapTapSee.

Please feel free to reach out to me by email if you would like to hear more about my work! My pronouns are she/her.


Featured Publications

Divya Ramesh, Caitlin Henning, Nel Escher, Haiyi Zhu, Min Kyung Lee, Nikola Banovic. "Ludification as a Lens for Algorithmic Management: A Case Study of Gig-Workers’ Experiences of Ambiguity in Instacart Work." In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’23), July 10–14, 2023, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. [Preprint]
Divya Ramesh, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Ding Wang, Nithya Sambasivan. "How Platform-User Power Relations Shape Algorithmic Accountability: A Case Study of Instant Loan Platforms and Financially Stressed Users in India." In Proceedings of 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT 2022). Seoul, South Korea. [Preprint]
Divya Ramesh, Anthony Liu, Jean Song, Andres Echeverria, Nicholas Waytowich, Walter Lasecki."Yesterday's Reward is Today's Punishment: Contrast Effects in Human Feedback to Reinforcement Learning Agents." In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2020). Auckland, New Zealand. [Preprint] [Talk] [Slides]

Pragnesh Jay Modi Best Student Paper Award