Hello,
I'm Rahul
Q Entrepreneurial Fellow at Northwestern University, building AstraClips.
I'm a Q Entrepreneurial Fellow at the Querrey InQbation Lab (Th Q), part of Innovation and New Ventures (INVO) at Northwestern University — building AstraClips. Previously, I was a Postdoc Fellow at Emory School of Medicine with Dr. Hyeok Kwon. I received my PhD from the School of Engineering & Science at Stevens Institute of Technology. I was very fortunate to be advised by Dr. Sang Won Bae. My research goals focuses on applying my knowledge in applied machine learning, and affective computing to solve problems in various domains, including ubiquitous computing, mental health sensing and interaction techniques.
Before commencing my Ph.D, I graduated with a Bachelors in Technology from IIIT Guwahati, with a major in Computer Science Engineering. As an undergraduate, I worked on multiple research projects under the guidance of Dr. Ferdous Ahmed Barbhuiya, and Dr. Kuntal Dey, among others.
News & Updates
- 04/26Started as a Q Entrepreneurial Fellow at the Querrey InQbation Lab (Th Q), Northwestern University — building AstraClips.
- 02/26Paper Evaluating the Feasibility of Deploying Quantized ViTPose for Mobile Human Pose Estimation accepted at GCMAS 2026 — pushing mobile gait analysis for children with cerebral palsy.
- 09/25Paper Enhancing Interpretable, Transparent, and Unobtrusive Detection of Acute Marijuana Intoxication in Natural Environments accepted at JMIR AI 2025.
- 08/25Paper Summary of the BeyondSmile Challenge on Detecting Depression Through Facial Behavior and Head Gestures published in the International Journal of Activity and Behavior Computing.
- 05/25Received the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award in the Stevens Systems Engineering Doctoral Program.
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- 04/25Gave a talk at Emory University: Low Burden Passive Physiological Sensing for Mental Health Monitoring.
- 02/25Started as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory School of Medicine, working on AI/ML in mobile systems for healthcare with Dr. Hyeokhyen Kwon.
- 02/25Organized the BeyondSmile Challenge at the 7th International Conference on Activity and Behavior Computing — Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE (Apr 21–25, 2025).
- 12/24Defended PhD in Systems Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, advised by Dr. Sang Won Bae.
- 10/24Four papers accepted in 2024 across ACM MobileHCI, IEEE BSN, and IEEE UIC: FacePsy, MoodCam, MoodPupilar, and MotionTrace.
- 09/24Research on detecting depression through facial and pupillary cues featured in WIRED, Science Daily, and several other outlets.
- 07/24Talk at Nokia Bell Labs: Affective Mobile Computing for Mental Health Sensing.
- 05/24Received the Academic Achievement Award in the Stevens SSE Doctoral Program.
Research
Journal · Conference · Workshop · Poster · arXiv
2026
[C.8] XDubber: Supporting Non-Native Creators with Explainable Cross-Lingual Video DubbingTo appear
ACM UIST 2026 (Under Review)
[C.7] Clinically Accessible 2D Video Analysis Accurately Captures 3D Knee Gait KinematicsTo appear
Annual Meeting of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine (AACPDM 2026, Under Review)
[C.6] Evaluating the Feasibility of Deploying Quantized ViTPose for Mobile Human Pose Estimation on Smartphone for Gait Analysis for children with Cerebral Palsy
Annual Meeting of the Gait & Clinical Movement Analysis Society (GCMAS 2026)
2025
[J.7] Enhancing Interpretable, Transparent, and Unobtrusive Detection of Acute Marijuana Intoxication in Natural Environments: Harnessing Smart Devices and Explainable AI to Empower Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions: Longitudinal Observational Study
JMIR AI 2025
[J.6] Summary of the BeyondSmile Challenge on Detecting Depression Through Facial Behavior and Head Gestures
International Journal of Activity and Behavior Computing (IJABC 2025)
2024
[C.5] MoodCam: Mood Prediction Through Smartphone-Based Facial Affect Analysis in Real-World Settings
IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC 2024)
[C.4] MotionTrace: IMU-based Trajectory Prediction for Smartphone AR Interactions
IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN 2024)
[C.3] MoodPupilar: Predicting Mood Through Smartphone Detected Pupillary Responses in Naturalistic Settings
IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN 2024)
[J.5] FacePsy: An Open-Source Affective Mobile Sensing System - Analyzing Facial Behavior and Head Gesture for Depression Detection in Naturalistic Settings
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (MobileHCI '24)
[C.2] PupilSense: Detection of Depressive Episodes Through Pupillary Response in the Wild
Activity and Behavior Computing 2024
[Po.4] Moving Toward Personalized Behavioral Medicine: Integrating Smartphone-based GPS Data into a Digital Alcohol Intervention
Society of Behavioral Medicine/Annals of Behavioral Medicine 2024
2023
[W.1] Revolutionizing Mental Health Support: An Innovative Affective Mobile Framework for Dynamic, Proactive, and Context-Adaptive Conversational Agents
ACM IMWUT/Ubicomp 2023, GenAI4PC Symposium
[Po.3] Towards Designing Empathetic and Trustworthy AI Chatbots: an Exploratory Study
CESUN 2023
[Po.2] MicroFlow: Advancing Affective States Detection in Learning Through Micro-Expressions
CESUN 2023
[J.4] Leveraging Mobile Phone Sensors, Machine Learning, and Explainable Artificial Intelligence to Predict Imminent Same-Day Binge-drinking Events to Support Just-in-time Adaptive Interventions: Algorithm Development and Validation Study
JMIR Formative Research 2023
2021
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[J.3] Mobile phone sensor-based detection of subjective cannabis intoxication in young adults: A feasibility study in real-world settings
Drug and Alcohol Dependence 2021
2018
[J.2] EyeSpyVR: Interactive Eye Sensing Using Off-the-Shelf, Smartphone-Based VR Headsets
ACM IMWUT/Ubicomp 2018
2017
[J.1] Convolutional neural networks for ocular smartphone-based biometrics
Pattern Recognition Letters, Volume 91. 2017
[Po.1] EyamKayo: Interactive Gaze and Facial Expression Captcha
ACM IUI 2017
2016
[C.1] A Preliminary Study of CNNs for Iris and Periocular Verification in the View Spectrum
ICPR 2016
[A.1] SenTion: A framework for Sensing Facial Expressions
arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.04489
Selected Media Coverage
- WIRED Depression can be detected simply by looking at a smartphone; new technology reveals its hidden potential
- Neuroscience News AI Detects Depression Through Eyes and Facial Cues
- Modern Optometry Cataract Patients Looking to Avoid Surgery? - Significant Findings
- Medical Xpress AI-powered apps show potential for detecting depression through eye snapshots
- News Medical Smartphone-based AI systems track subtle facial, pupil signals to identify depression
- Science Daily When detecting depression, the eyes have it
- Hindustan Times You smile more when you're depressed: Pilot AI-powered apps can detect depression early …
- StudyFinds.org Sad eyes are real — Apps may soon recognize depression in your face
- New Scientist AI can detect if you have recently smoked cannabis
- Forbes Your Smartphone Can Tell If You're High On Marijuana, Study Finds
Professional Experience
- Senior Software Architect, Egnify, 2019 (Hyderabad, India)
- Data Scientist, ParallelDots, 2017 (Gurugram, India)
Reviewing
- ACM IMWUT/Ubicomp '22, '23, '24, '25, '26
- ACM CHI '24, '25, '26
- ACM UIST '24, '25
- OzCHI '24
- Elsevier CVIU '17
Teaching
- 2025 Emory, Introduction to Machine Learning, Guest Lecture & Evaluator
- 2024 Stevens, Fundamentals of Quantitative Software Engineering, TA
- 2024 Stevens, Decision Making Via Data Analysis Techniques, Guest Lecture
- 2024 Stevens, Data-Mining and Applied Machine Learning, TA
- 2023 Stevens, Informatics for Engineering Management, Guest Lecture
- 2023 Stevens, Fundamentals of Software Engineering, TA
Academic Service
- Technical Program Committee, IEEE-EMBS BSN 2025
- Program Committee & Challenge Organizer, Activity and Behavior Computing 2025
