Education:
- Ph.D., Computer Science, Virginia Tech, USA (2017-2022)
- M.S., Computer Science, Virginia Tech, USA (2018-2020)
- MPhil, Information Technology, University of Sindh, Pakistan (2013-2016)
- B.S., Information Technology, University of Sindh, Pakistan (2007-2010)
Teaching Experience:
- Teaching Assistant (Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Sindh- Pakistan)
- Visiting Faculty (Department of Computer Science, Sindh University Campus, Mirpurkhas)
Courses Taught:
- Programming Fundamentals (C++)
- Software Engineering Project Management
- Visual Programming (VB.Net)
- Introduction to Information Technology
Research Interests:
- Parent-child Computer Interaction
- Technologies for families and children
- Distractions/disorientation
- Digital childcare assistants
- Research in sensitive settings
Biography:
Neelma Bhatti completed her MS and PhD in Computer Science (Human Computer Interaction) from Virginia Tech as a recipient of Fulbright scholarship. In her doctoral research, she used and adapted a variety of qualitative research methods to investigate parents’ use of technology as a care-giving tool to design interactive media for young children based on parents’ context of use and sought gratifications. She also explored the potential of using screen and voice-based interfaces to facilitate young children’s secondary language learning.
Prior to her research trajectory at Virginia Tech, she investigated how disorientation occurs in various tech-centered activities in online and outdoor environments, and developed means to identify and resolve it to facilitate learning in different educational contexts. She has published work in IEEE and ACM conferences including Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Interaction Design and Children (IDC), International conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP), Human-Agent Interaction (HAI), and Interactive Media Experiences (IMX). Her work on designing mobile applications to minimize disorientation in informal learning environments won an honorable mention award for short papers at ACM IDC 2021.
Before pursuing higher education in the US, she served as a Teaching Assistant in the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Sindh- Pakistan for a period of five years, where she was involved in teaching undergraduate courses, thesis and project supervision, student counseling, and event management.
Selected Awards and Accomplishments
- Principal candidate for the Fulbright PhD Scholarship Program.
- Invited as an outstanding student speaker at Virginia Tech’s Spring 2022 Commencement.
- Best short paper honorable mention award at ACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC) conference 2021.
- Selected to participate in Grad Cohort for women (CRA-W) in 2019 and 2021.
Community Service
- Reviewer, ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2022), ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2021 and 2022), ACM Interaction Design and Children conference 2022 (IDC 2022), and Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (OzCHI 2020).
- Session Co-Chair, “International Virtual Conference of Emerging Trends In Computing And Software Engineering-2021″, Faculty of Science & Technology, ILMA University, Karachi, Pakistan.
- Student Volunteer, ACM Interaction Design and Children (IDC) conference 2020.
- Bachelors and master’s Student Selection Committee Member, University of Sindh Pakistan 2013-2014.
- Anchor-person, Academic Convocation 2011 and 2012 of University of Sindh Jamshoro, Pakistan.
- Student volunteer, IEEE student branch IICT, University of Sindh Jamshoro, Pakistan. (2009-2010).
Selected Publications
- Bhatti, N., Mbakwe, A.B., Nnadi, S., Clarke, G.S., McCrickard, D.S., Kelliher, A, and Gautam, A. (2022). Intimate Narratives: An Assets-Based Approach To Develop Holistic Perspectives of Student Mothers’ Lives and Their Use of Technology in Parenting. CSCW 22: The 25th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing. Read
- Bhatti, N., Kotut, L., Haqq, D., Stelter, T. L., Saaty, M., Kelliher, A., & McCrickard, D. S. (2021). Parenting, Studying and Working at Home in a Foreign Country: How International Student Mothers in the US Use Screen Media For and With Their Young Children. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), 1-25. Read
- Bhatti, N., Saaty, M., & McCrickard, S. (2021, June). Designing Mobile Applications to Minimize Disorientation in Informal Learning Environments. In Interaction Design and Children (pp. 196-203). Read
- Bhatti, N., Stelter, T. L., McCrickard, S., & Kelliher, A. (2021, June). Conversational User Interfaces As Assistive Interlocutors For Young Children’s Bilingual Language Acquisition. In ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences (pp. 208-211). Read
- Bhatti, N., Ismaili, I. A., Dhomeja, L. D., & McCrickard, D. S. (2020, August). Revealing And Resolving Disorientation In An Online Course Module Of Java Programming. In 2020 15th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE) (pp. 781-786). IEEE. Read
- Kotut, L., Bhatti, N., Saaty, M., Haqq, D., Stelter, T. L., & McCrickard, D. S. (2020, April). Clash of times: Respectful technology space for integrating community stories in intangible exhibits. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). Read
- Bhatti, N., Ismaili, I. A., & Dhomeja, L. D. (2017, March). Identifying and resolving disorientation in e-learning systems. In 2017 international conference on communication, Computing and Digital Systems (C-CODE) (pp. 169-174). IEEE. Read
- Bhatti, N., Dhomeja, L. D., & Malkani, Y. A. (2014, December). Service discovery protocols in Pervasive Computing: A review. In 17th IEEE International Multi Topic Conference 2014 (pp. 205-210). IEEE. Read
