Prof. Nitin Sawhney leads the CRAI–CIS (CRitical AI and Crisis Interrogatives) research group in the Department of Computer Science at Aalto University. Working at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), ethical AI, and participatory design research, he examines the critical role of technology, civic agency, and social justice in society and crisis contexts. Prof. Sawhney has researched speech/audio interaction, wearable computing, distributed open source collaboration, and civic/participatory media at the MIT Media Lab and The New School.
At Aalto University, he is the principal investigator for a 3–year Academy of Finland research project on Reconstructing Crisis Narratives for Trustworthy Communication and Cooperative Agency, jointly conducted with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). In December 2021, he received an award from the Kone Foundation for a 4–year research project Citizen Agency in AI? Democratizing Algorithmic Services in the City (CAAI). Prof. Sawhney is a member of the research program on AI and Society at the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI).
