Taslima Akter

Assistant Professor, University of Texas San Antonio
Former CIFellow Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California Irvine
PhD in Computer Science, Indiana University Bloomington
HCI, Usable Security & Privacy, Accessibility

About Me

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA). Prior to joining UTSA, I worked as a CIFellow Postdoctoral researcher mentored by Dr. Anne Marie Piper in the Department of Informatics at the Univerity of California Irvine. I am a recipient of 2021 National Science Foundation/ Computing Research Association, Computing Innovation Fellowship. I received my PhD in Computer Science from the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering (SICE) at Indiana University, Bloomington. I was advised by Professor Apu Kapadia at Privacy Lab during my PhD. I have completed my undergraduate from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). In Fall 2018, I have done internship at Microsoft Research India to explore the shared privacy concerns of visually impaired people and bystanders in the context of camera-based assistive technologies.

My current research interest lies in the field of usable privacy and security in the context of assistive technologies; in particular I am excited about understanding and designing systems that can address privacy challenges faced by people with visual impairments while using existing and emerging assistive technologies. During my undergraduate studies, I worked on visual sensor network, wireless network, and mobile computing.

I am currently looking for graduate students.

Recent News

Oct 2024: Serving as a Program Committee member in ASSETS 2024 and SOUPS 2024.
August 2024: Joined as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at UTSA.
August 2024: Served as Lightning Talks/Demos co-chair in SOUPS 2024.
May 2024: Served as Associate Chair (Privacy Sub-committee) in CHI 2024.
August 2023: Served as Lightning Talks/Demos co-chair in SOUPS 2023.
August 2023: Served as a Program Committee member in SOUPS 2023, ASSETS 2023, and CCS 2023.
July 2023: Paper published in ASSETS 2023.
Nov 2022: Two papers published in CSCW 2022.
June 2022: Started Postdoc at the University of California Irvine supported by CIFellows 2021.
May 2022: Completed PhD in Computer Science from Indiana University.
January 2022: Published paper in TACCESS 2022.
Oct 2020: Presented paper on shared privacy concens of visually impaired people and bystanders at ASSETS, 2020.
Oct 2020: Attended Doctoral Consortium and presented poster at CSCW 2020.
Aug 2020: Organized Workshop on Inclusive Privacy and Security (WIPS) at SOUPS, 2020.
Feb 2020: My doctoral dissertation work received Google Faculty Research Award.
Oct 2019: Attended doctoral consortium at ASSETS 2019.
Sep 2018: Started my fall internship at Microsoft Research India.

Research

Concerns regarding Bystander Privacy

Understanding the shared privacy concerns of visually impaired and bystanders in the use of camera-based assistive technologies.
Method: Online survey, Interview

Privacy Concerns of Visually Impaired

Investigated unintended information disclosing preference of visually impaired in the context of camera-based assistive technologies.
Method: Online survey, Interview

Roles of ICTs on ROTC students

Explored the transition disclosure practices of Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) students from individualistic to military culture.
Method: Interview, Qualitative analysis

MCMS in Visual Sensor Networks

Proposed a novel heuristic to give near optimal solution to Maximum Coverage with Minimum Sensors (MCMS) problem of Visual Sensor Networks that outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Selecting Best Target Netowrk using MOVH

Developed multi-objective vertical hand-off (MOVH) approach in heterogeneous wireless networks to select the best target network among the existing networks using multi-objective genetic algorithm.

Publications

Refereed Journal and Conference Papers

Taslima Akter, Manohar Swaminathan, and Apu Kapadia, "Toward Effective Communication of AI-Based Decisions in Assistive Tools: Conveying Confidence or Doubt to People with Visual Impairments at Accelerated Speech. (Best paper candidate) To appear in 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A '24).


Taslima Akter, Yoonha Cha, Isabela Figueira, Stacy Branham, and Anne Marie Piper, "If I’m supposed to be the facilitator, I should be the host": Understanding the Accessibility of Videoconferencing for Blind and Low Vision Meeting Facilitators. ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23).


Taslima Akter, Reducing Privacy Risks of Visually Impaired People with Camera-Based Assistive Technologies. Dissertation, Indiana University, 2022.


Sabid Bin Habib Pias, Imtiaz Ahmad, Taslima Akter, Apu Kapadia, and Adam J. Lee, Decaying Photos for Enhanced Privacy: User Perceptions Towards Temporal Redactions and 'Trusted' Platforms. ACM Journal: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ‘22).


Imtiaz Ahmad, Taslima Akter, Zachary Buher, Rosta Farzan, Apu Kapadia, and Adam J. Lee, Tangible Privacy for Smart Voice Assistants: Bystanders' Perceptions of Physical Device Controls. ACM Journal: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ‘22).


Taslima Akter, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Manohar Swaminathan, Shared Privacy Concerns of the Visually Impaired and Sighted Bystanders with Camera Based Assistive Technologies. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS '22).


Taslima Akter, Privacy Considerations of the Visually Impaired with Camera Based Assistive Tools. CSCW '20 Companion : Conference Companion Publication of the 2020 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, October 2020.


Taslima Akter, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Manohar Swaminathan, Privacy Considerations of the Visually Impaired with Camera Based Assistive Technologies: Misrepresentation, Impropriety, and Fairness. In The 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '20), Athens, Greece, October 2020.


Taslima Akter, Bryan Dosono, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Bryan Semaan, "I am uncomfortable sharing what I can't see": Privacy Concerns of the Visually Impaired with Camera Based Assistive Applications. In the Proceedings of 29th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '20), Boston, USA, August 2020.


Bryan Dosono, Yasmeen Rashidi, Taslima Akter, Bryan Semaan, and Apu Kapadia, Challenges in Transitioning from Civil to Military Culture: Hyper-Selective Disclosure through ICTs. Proceedings of the ACM Journal: Human-Computer Interaction: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (PACM '17/CSCW '18), Vol. 1, No. 2, Article 41, 2017.


Hafsa Zannat, Taslima Akter, Mashrura Tasnim, and Ashikur Rahman, The coverage problem in visual sensor networks: A target oriented approach. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, Vol 75 (2016): 1-15.


Novia Nurain, Taslima Akter, Hafsa Zannat, Most. Monira Akter, A. B. M. Alim Al Islam and Md. Humayun Kabir, General-Purpose Multi-Objective Vertical Hand-off Mechanism Exploiting Network Dynamics. IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), 2015, Abu Dhabi, UAE.



Workshop Papers and Posters

Sabid Bin Habib Pias, Alicia Freel, Timothy Trammel, Taslima Akter , Donald Williamson, Apu Kapadia The Drawback of Insight: Detailed Explanations Can Reduce Agreement with XAI. ACM CHI 2024 Workshop on Human-Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI), 2024.

Taslima Akter, Bryan Dosono, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Bryan Semaan, AI vs Human Intelligence: Privacy Implications of Assistive Tools for Visually Impaired People. Grace Hopper Conference (GHC), 2019.


Taslima Akter, Bryan Dosono, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Bryan Semaan, Privacy Implications of Assistive Tools for Visually Impaired People. Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), 2019.


Taslima Akter, Bryan Dosono, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Bryan Semaan, Privacy Implications of Artificial and Human Intelligence Assistive Tools for Visually Impaired People. AI-HCI, CHI, 2019.


Taslima Akter, Bryan Dosono, Tousif Ahmed, Apu Kapadia, and Bryan Semaan, Privacy Concerns of People with Visual Impairments while Using Camera-based Assistive Technologies. CRA-W Grad Cohort workshop, 2019.


Taslima Akter, Bryan Dosono, Yasmeen Rashidi, Bryan Semaan, and Apu Kapadia, Challenges in Transitioning from Civil to Military Culture: Hyper-Selective Disclosure through ICTs. Midwest Security Workshop (MSW), 2018.


Taslima Akter, Tousif Ahmed, Kay Connelly, David Crandall, and Apu Kapadia, Privacy Risks of Using Camera Assisted Tools for People with Visual Impairments. The Bright and Dark Sides of Computer Vision: Challenges and Opportunities for Privacy and Security (CV-COPS), 2017, Hawaii, USA.


Hafsa Zannat, Monira Akter, Taslima Akter and A. B. M. Alim Al Islam, MOVH: General Purpose Multi-Objective Vertical Hand-off Mechanism with Higher Scalability and Higher Stability. Workshop on Mobile Computing and Human-Computer Interaction (MoHCI), 2014, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Contact

Taslima Akter

700 N Woodlawn Ave

Bloomington, Indiana, 47408

Email: taslima.akter@utsa.edu

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