Deepika Yadav

Hi, I am a postdoctoral researcher at KTH. My research concerns with Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design challenges in Health and Well-being. Over the past eight years, my research has focused on designing, developing and field-deploying technologies for digital transformation in community health and women's health in global contexts. I am driven by a desire to design technologies that better meet the needs and practices of people in their everyday lives and in doing so, I apply participatory and user-centred design methods with feminist values at the core.

One aspect of my current research focuses on examining intimate care practices in the workplace context. Through a qualitative examination of the use of breast pumps in the knowledge-work setting, I analysed how users appropriate their technology use to balance bodily needs and work priorities, and what it means to carry out intimate care in the workplace. The paper received an honourable mention at the premier conference of Human Conference Interaction - CHI 2023. The other context is  domestic and shared use of digital contraception where I am investigating how users develop trust with their intimate care technology, develop knowledge about their body and experience shared use with their intimate partner. 

I am committed to working on real world, interdisciplinary research that can positively impact society. My Ph.D. exemplifies this through a comprehensive research targeted at addressing challenges in the training and learning of community health workers (CHWs) in rural India, who are low-literate village women. I proposed a low-cost, innovate Interactive Voice Response system for facilitating voice-based online training sessions for CHWs having no internet. Through field-deployments covering more than 500 CHWs, the research contributed in identifying community needs, exploring interaction design opportunities for peer-to-peer learning over synchronous voice interfaces, and curation approach for learning content in local languages.  Notably, my research received the Grand Explorations Award (Round 20) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, accompanied by a generous funding grant of $100,000. Moreover, the exceptional quality of my Ph.D. work was acknowledged with an honourable mention award from ACM India in 2022.

I did my Ph.D from IIIT-Delhi, India and prior to my currect postdoc, I worked as a Digital Futures fellow at the department of Computer and System Sciences, Stockholm University. For my publication list please see: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=deepika+yadav&oq=deepi