People

Ashok K. Goel

Professor of Computer Science and Human-Centered Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology

Executive Director, NSF National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education
Chief Scientist, Center for 21st Century Universities

Ashok Goel works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and learning. For more than a decade his research has focused on AI in education and education in AI. His laboratory created Jill Watson, among the first virtual teaching assistants used at scale in online higher education, and he leads the US National Science Foundation’s AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education. A Fellow of AAAI and the Cognitive Science Society, he received AAAI’s Outstanding AI Educator Award. He advises CETLS on how AI can support teaching presence, adult and online learning, and institute-scale experimentation rather than one-off tools.

Ryan S. Baker

Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Education, Adelaide University

Director, Penn Center for Learning Analytics
Adjunct Professor, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

Ryan Baker uses educational data mining and learning analytics to study how students actually use digital learning environments — and what that use predicts. He has built models of engagement, affect, and “gaming the system” across intelligent tutors, games, and MOOCs, and developed the BROMP classroom observation protocol used by researchers in several countries. Founding president of the International Educational Data Mining Society and Associate Editor of the Journal of Educational Data Mining, he teaches the long-running MOOC Big Data and Education. He advises CETLS on evidence, measurement, and the responsible use of learner data across K-12 and higher education.

Matthew Kam

Former Employee of Google

Former Staff User Experience Researcher, Software Engineering Education

Matthew Kam studies how learning technologies are designed and used at scale, and how AI is changing the work people must learn to do. At Google he led research that shaped products used by more than 100 million students and teachers, including Chromebooks in education, Google Classroom, Google Forms, and Expeditions. His earlier academic work at UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon designed mobile literacy games with children in rural and low-income schools in India. He advises organizations including Google.org, UNICEF, and the Computing Research Association. For CETLS he brings human-centered product research, workforce-relevant AI learning, and design for large, diverse school systems.

J. Derek Lomas

Professor of Positive AI, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, TU Delft

Director, AI & Experience Design Lab
Cofounder, Playpower Labs and Smart Paper

Derek Lomas designs AI systems that support learning and wellbeing, not only efficiency. Trained in cognitive science (Yale), design (UC San Diego), and HCI (Carnegie Mellon, with Ken Koedinger and Jodi Forlizzi), he used large-scale experiments to optimize educational games for motivation and learning. Through Playpower Labs and Smart Paper he has reached millions of learners; Smart Paper’s computer-vision assessment of paper work has been used in 65,000 schools in India, reaching 4.7 million students. He advises CETLS on learning-experience design, AI at classroom scale in Indian contexts, and keeping human judgement at the centre of automated systems.

Vasudeva Varma

vv@iiit.ac.in

Vasudeva Varma is a Professor and the Head of the Centre for Educational Technology and Learning Sciences (CETLS) at IIIT Hyderabad. He previously served as the Dean of Research and Development and CEO of IIIT Hyderabad. His research focuses on Information Retrieval, Extraction, and Access, with specific interests in Social Media Analysis, Semantic Search, and Text Generation. He is a recipient of the Google Research Award for his work in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Praveen Garimella

praveeng@iiit.ac.in

Praveen Garimella is an educational technology practitioner, learning scientist, and systems architect. He serves as an Associate Professor of Practice at CETLS, IIIT Hyderabad, and as an Adjunct Faculty member in the Software & Societal Systems Department at Carnegie Mellon University. With over two decades of experience at the intersection of cognitive science, AI, and platform engineering, he focuses on designing intelligent tutoring systems and mastery-based learning ecosystems.

Dr. Santanu Paul

Dr. Santanu Paul is the founding CEO and Managing Director of TalentSprint. He has served as Senior Vice President for Global Delivery Operations at Virtusa Corporation. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Madras. He is a Visiting Professor at IIT Hyderabad and serves on the boards of organizations such as NPCI and NSDL Payments Bank.

Dr. Vamshi Ambati

Dr. Vamshi Ambati is an AI entrepreneur, researcher, and investor. He earned his Ph.D. from the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He has founded multiple companies, including LatentStructure and Predera, and has held technical roles at PayPal and Base CRM. He is currently an investor at Virama Ventures.

Kavita Vemuri

Bapi Raju

Vishnu Sreekumar

Bhaktee Dongaonkar

Venkatesh Chopella

Soma Paul

Suresh Purini

Chiranjeevi Yarra

Anoop Namboodiri

Jawahar C V

Karthik Vaidhyanathan

Prabhakar Bhimalapuram

Sachin Chaudhari

Aftab Hussain

Raghu Reddy