Rahul Divekar

Rahul Divekar specializes in the crossroads of Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction, channeling his expertise towards the realm of Educational Technology. His primary focus involves pioneering innovative approaches to language learning through the utilization of AI agents.

What truly ignites his passion is the prospect of further enriching his knowledge and skills in the realm of Human-AI interaction within the field of Education. Simultaneously, he harbors a strong desire to expand his expertise into uncharted domains, embracing fresh challenges and opportunities for growth.

He is enthusiastic about the field of Human-AI interactions, leveraging his expertise primarily within the realm of educational technology as a compelling application of AI with wide-ranging implications for human-AI interactions in general. His focus has been on facilitating collaborative learning experiences involving humans and conversational AI agents capable of comprehending multi-modal inputs, all within an immersive extended reality setting.

In pursuit of this vision, he has undertaken the creation of intricate systems and interaction frameworks, deploying various research methodologies to address crucial interaction challenges. These challenges encompass fundamental aspects such as how an AI agent can discern when it is the subject of attention in a multi-party conversation, as well as how it can effectively display conversational cues and affordances to enhance students' interactions with conversational AI.

His contributions extend to the design and execution of research studies aimed at assessing the usability and effectiveness of these human-AI interactions. He has consistently identified these challenges and successfully tackled them through a combination of heuristic methods and advanced AI techniques.

Remarkably, his rigorous inquiry methods, significant findings, and subsequent refinements have led to the establishment of a pioneering for-credit AI course at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. This groundbreaking achievement garnered substantial recognition, with coverage by prestigious outlets such as MIT Tech Review, Associated Press, and The New York Times, among others.

Furthermore, his efforts culminated in the development of an enhanced iteration of the system and its associated interactions, which made a noteworthy impact by participating in a new category at the Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC) during IJCAI 2020.

Education:

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY, USA
  • PhD - Computer Science 2020
  • MS - Information Technology and Web Science 2015 - 2016
• University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India
  • Bachelor of Computer Engineering 2011 - 2015

Academic Appointments:

• Assistant Professor, Bentley University 2023-present
  Information Design and Corporate Communication Department
• Research Assistant, IBM’s AI Horizons Network (AIHN) Cognitive Immersive Systems Lab (CISL), RPI 2017-2020
• Teaching Assistant, RPI Fall 15, Spring 15, Fall 16
  Mentored students and graded assignments and tests on Data Science, Data Structures, and Intro to Web Science
• Instructor, Don Bosco Institute of Technology (DBIT) October 2014 – April 2015
  Led a group that designed the curriculum and conducted a course based on Red Hat Certification Exams for 11 students

Research Skills:

• Research Focus: HCI of AI, Conversational Artificial Intelligence, Multiagent interactions, Multimodal interactions, Immersive environments, Educational Technology, AI in Foreign language education
• Technologies: Python, HuggingFace, R, NodeJS, HTML
• Other: Designing, planning, and executing IRB-approved human-subject experiments. Natural Language Processing. Data Analytics and Statistics