📣 On the job market for 2026–27!
I'm seeking tenure-track faculty positions. If you know of relevant opportunities, I'd be grateful if you could reach out via email. My CV is available here.

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where I am advised by Mayank Goel. I envision AI not as a tool that waits for our requests, but as a partner that senses our everyday lives and knows when and how to step in to empower us, even amid noisy sensing and evolving needs. My research bridges ubiquitous sensing, human–AI interaction, and computational modeling, grounded in healthcare deployments. This includes (1) machine perception robust to uncertainty; (2) interaction policies that balance AI initiative with human agency; and (3) a science of long-term human–AI co-adaptation.



Two health AI assistants I developed have been deployed at four clinical sites across the US and Europe, serving more than 300 patients and families: post-operative wound care for skin cancer patients and daily activities for people living with dementia, and family-centered care for children with ADHD-related hyperactivity. I also led the industry transfer of my conversational behavior-sensing system, used by therapy and coaching companies in Japan for over six years across more than 1,000 sessions.



I have published 35+ peer-reviewed full papers (11 ACM CHI, 4 UIST, 6 IMWUT), receiving a CHI Best Paper Award and four Honorable Mention Awards. I have also received the ACM UbiComp/ISWC Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award (2025) and the IEEE Pervasive Computing Emerging Rockstar (2026), have been named to Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 in Healthcare & Science (2024) and MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 Japan (2025), and have been supported by the Funai Foundation, Masason Foundation, Snap Research Fellowship, and Quad Fellowship.

News

previous news

Research

My research asks: How should proactive AI assistants decide when and how to help, despite uncertain observations and evolving human needs? My Ph.D. research has addressed this question through three lenses: (1) understanding and mitigating sensing uncertainty, (2) designing uncertainty-aware human–AI interactions, and (3) enabling adaptation through everyday interactions. In collaboration with clinicians, health experts, and industry partners, I have developed, deployed, and evaluated these assistants in the following real-world settings:

  • PrISM: Context-Aware, Mixed-Initiative Support for Procedural Tasks (patients recovering from skin cancer surgery, people living with dementia)
  • LemurDx: Hyperactivity Sensing and Family-Centered Support for Children (children with ADHD and their families)
  • Ment'Al'ist: Social Signal Processing in Human Development Scenes (coaches, therapists, and their clients)

Honors and Awards

Research Fellowships and Grants

Secured over $500k in fellowships and research grants as the lead applicant.

earlier fellowships and grants

Academic Honors and Awards

earlier awards

Misc.

more (competitions and hackathons)

Talks

Media Coverage

Contact

rarakawa [at] cs.cmu.edu