The Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) awarded a prestigious summer fellowship to a University of Texas at Dallas PhD student.
Hamida Khatri, a UT Dallas teaching assistant at the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology and second-year PhD student pursuing a degree in Arts, Technology, & Emerging Communication, is among approximately 20 graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and untenured faculty selected for the SICSS program at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Khatri is noted for her extensive research in computational social science, victimology, and the philosophy of psychiatry. In addition to her current academic pursuits at UT Dallas, she’s striving for various professional certificates from renowned institutions, including a Professional Certificate in Augmented/Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and a Post Graduate Program Certificate in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning from Texas McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.
“My primary focus lies in advancing mental health treatments, public policies, and interventions against gender-based violence,” Khatri stated. “I am committed to developing gaming simulations for victims and survivors of abuse and trauma, informed by clinically driven data using Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.”
The Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS), an initiative housed at the Social Science Research Council, are designed to bring together graduate students, early career researchers, and data science professionals interested in computational social science. The program features lectures, hands-on coding tutorials, and participant-led research projects.
Khatri’s research and technical proficiency in the field of computational social science have grown with a focus on social justice, healthcare, and public policymaking. Her work, including a comprehensive study on gender-based violence in Pakistan and an AI multi-modal system to predict occurrences of violence, has been recognized at renowned conferences including the 2020 IEEE Cloud Summit and the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity Computing Conference.
As the director of VR Catalyst, a ground-breaking non-profit organization, Khatri harnesses the power of virtual reality gaming simulation and therapy to aid victims and survivors of GBV. Her unique interdisciplinary approach incorporates elements from Islamic Art, Persian Literature, and South Asian Studies to analyze the complex psychological and social impacts of GBV on victims and survivors.
Khatri’s acceptance into this fellowship program further solidifies her position at the forefront of innovative solutions to GBV and the intersection of technology and societal issues.