Ashwini Naik

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory with interests and expertise in visual analytics, immersive analytics, and aspects related to UX Research and HCI. My preliminary exam announcement titled "Improving Conversation Analysis Pipeline through Personal Situated Analytics (PSA) in Extended Reality" can be found here - https://www.evl.uic.edu/events/2720. PSA is an extended reality (XR) framework that combines embodied cognition & situated analytics for sensemaking in immersive environments. My work has been published at UIST, ISMAR, IEEE GEM, the Journal of Neuroscience Research, and the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). I have experience building prototypes using a wide variety of languages (JavaScript, C#, Blender) libraries, and SDKs (Unity, d3, VRTK, MRTK) for devices including but not limited to HoloLens 1 and 2 and Quest 1 and 2.

I also built a 3D visualization tool to help neuroscientists understand the evolution of dynamic communities in mouse brain networks and the work has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research.

I have extensive experience taking a system from conception to an end product and I enjoy every bit of the journey achieving it. I also have experience designing and conducting UX Research including online and in-person user studies for several prototypes I have built with participant counts ranging from 12 to 59. I am passionate about prototyping using multiple libraries and environments (Unity, JavaScript/D3, Python). 

I have 8 years of experience in the industry with 5 years in gaming. I completed my Masters in Computer Science at UIC in 2011.

EVL profile: https://www.evl.uic.edu/people/2301