EDUCATION

M.S. Computer Science, specializing in Human Computer Interaction, July 2009

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
GPA: 4.0 / 4.0

B.Tech. Information Technology, July 2004

GGSIPU, New Delhi, India
75.3%, 2nd in Department

EXPERIENCE

Windows Live, Microsoft – Software Developer

Aug 09 – Present: Working on the invitations and contacts experience of profile.live.com.

Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech – Graduate Research Assistant

Sept 07 – May 08, Aug 08 – Jun 09: Worked with Dr. Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones, Dr. Stephen Edwards and Dr. Andrea Kavanaugh. I was the primary developer for Colloki, CATSpace and VizBlog for the duration of my assistantship.

Strands Labs, Seattle – Innovation Intern

May – Aug 08: Co-designed, developed and deployed a prototype proactive display at Trabant coffee shop, Seattle under Dr. Joe McCarthy. The display ‘senses’ community members physically present in the coffee shop, and presents their social media as a dynamic visualization.

Department of Learning Sciences & Technologies, Virginia Tech – Affiliated Graduate Researcher

Nov 07 – May 08: Designed a framework for communication of instructional media between Virginia Tech campus faculty and schools in the African nation of Malawi under Dr. Michael A. Evans.

Infosys Technologies Ltd. – Software Engineer

Sept 04 – June 07: Developed Transaction Monitoring APIs compliant with ARM 4.x for integration across Finacle banking applications. Developed optimized database access layer for several core banking transactions. Performed optimizations and tuning activities on-site.

Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi – Research Assistant

May – August 2002: Development of analysis tools and extensions for the MATLAB Analysis platform at the Design Research Labs, under Dr. T.K. Kundra.

SKILLS

  • Languages: C++, C#, Java, PHP, HTML, Javascript, CSS, Actionscript 3.x, Ruby, SQL
  • Platforms: UNIX (HPUX, IBM AIX, Solaris), LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), Ruby on Rails, .Net, WebSphere, WinXP/2k, Mac OS X.
  • Others: Application Monitoring (ITCAMfRTT, HP OpenView, DTrace), Graphic Design (Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fireworks), Adobe Flash CS3.

BOOK CHAPTERS

PUBLICATIONS

  • Measuring the Impact of Third Place Attachment on the Adoption of a Place-Based Community Technology – Shelly D. Farnham, Joseph F. McCarthy, Yagnesh Patel, Sameer Ahuja, Daniel Norman, William R. Hazlewood, Josh Lind; (to appear in) ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2009, 2009.
  • Colloki: Rethinking local conversations on the web – Sameer Ahuja, Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones, Andrea Kavanaugh, Candida Tauro, B. Joon Kim; short paper in the proceedings of Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing – Conference on Online Deliberation, University of California, Berkeley, June 2008
  • Deliberation in the Wild: A Visualization Tool for Blog Discovery and Citizen-to-Citizen Participation – Candida Tauro, Sameer Ahuja, Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones, Andrea Kavanaugh, Philip Isenhour; Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Digital Government Research (dg.o 2008), Montreal, Canada, May 18-21, 2008

TALKS

  • Slurp! – Sameer Ahuja: Center for HCI Seminar Series, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA; April 2009.
  • Participatory design strategies engaging students and community partners in Human-Computer Interaction Research and Outreach – Andrea Kavanaugh, Sameer Ahuja: Outreach Now ‘08, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA; September 8, 2008.
  • Web 2.0 for Local Action Groups: The Case Study of Citizens First – Sameer Ahuja, B. Joon Kim, Andrea Kavanaugh, Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones, Candida Tauro: Presentation at the Practical Design for Social Action (PRaDSA) Workshop on Designing for the 21st Century: Using Web 2.0 Technologies and (Social Networking Tools) for Social Action, London, UK, March 11-12, 2008
  • Mobile Learning in a Global Context: Design and Technical Considerations – Michael A. Evans, Diana Wu, Sameer Ahuja: Third Annual Research Conference, Virginia Tech School Of Education Student Association, Blacksburg, VA, Feb 26, 2008.

POSTERS AND DEMONSTRATIONS

  • VizBlog: Discovering Conversations in the Blogosphere – Candida Tauro, Sameer Ahuja, Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones, Andrea Kavanaugh, Philip Isenhour: Technology demonstration at Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing – Conference on Online Deliberation, University of California, Berkeley, June 2008.
  • Intelligent Thin Clients for Web Applications – Sameer Ahuja, Aman J Singh, Vikram Bhatla: National Conference on Radio Science, INCURSI 2003, at National Physical Laboratories, New Delhi, India.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Completed Infosys’ training with a CGPA of 5/5.
  • B.Tech thesis on “Developing a Computational Grid with Web-based Grid Access” was adjudged second in GGS Indraprastha University in 2004. The project involved deploying Sun Grid Engine over 40 Linux nodes, and developing a web interface for Grid control and Job submission.
  • Awarded a Scholarship by Bank of Baroda for outstanding academic performance in the year 2002-2003.
  • Won three undergraduate level website development competitions held at national events in India (Conversance ’03, Eureka ’02, InfoXpressions ’01).

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

  • Member, Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), ACM/IEEE-CS International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines.
  • Student Member, ACM.

SERVICE

  • Reviewer, TAPIA 2009
  • Student Volunteer, SIGCSE 2009
  • Reviewer, CHI 2008 Work-In-Progress, Student Research Competition.
  • Webmaster, Computer Science Graduate Council, Virginia Tech (Sept 2008 – April 2009).
  • Headed the student organization team for undergraduate college’s first national technical fest, GATES 2004