- HCI researcher
- PhD, University of Waterloo, 2025
Ali Rizvi
Technology for the other eighty percent.
- I'm an HCI researcher. I design and study AI and interactive systems for the 80% of people they were never built for - the wrong language, a bad connection, a small or moving room, and a lot to lose if the system gets it wrong.
- Most AI in mental health right now is a chatbot you talk to. I'm going the other way: diagnostic tools a child actually takes part in, and reports that give a parent something to do next.
- I build the systems as part of the research. One turned into a company (Scramble Deck), one turned into independent research with a partner school in Hyderabad (Bodhika Labs).
- Published at CHI, Graphics Interface, CHI PLAY and ACM Interactive Health.
- Before the PhD: ~7 years in product and analytics. Senior technical PM on the orchestration layer of Amazon Alexa; built the data science and AI products for compliance at Morgan Stanley.
- Taught 9 courses in UX and HCI at Waterloo, ~700 students.
- Independent researcher right now, and on the academic job market for 2027.
