Ranjitha Kumar

Ranjitha Kumar is an Associate Professor at the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She leads the Data Driven Design Group and serves as Director of the Innovation Leadership and Engineering Entrepreneurship (ILEE) Program in the Grainger College of Engineering. Her research bridges machine learning, user experience, and design, with a focus on data-driven tools for UX practitioners, designers, and programmers.

• BS and PhD in Computer Science, Stanford University

Her work explores machine learning for effective user experiences, including interaction mining for mobile apps, custom experience ontologies, and emoji-first communication. She also investigates fashion compatibility prediction using embeddings and human-AI co-creation in design.

The 15 most recent articles highlight her leadership in Human-Computer Interaction (e.g., mobile interaction frameworks, UX testing tools) and fashion technology (e.g., outfit compatibility models, social media influencer analysis). Notable trends include AI-driven user experience optimization, embedding-based feedback loops, and large-scale datasets like Rico and ZIPT.

• 2019 Dean's Award for Excellence in Research (UIUC College of Engineering)
• 2018 C.W. Gear Outstanding Junior Faculty Award
• Google Faculty Research Award for 'Design Mining Android Apps at Scale'
• AWS Machine Learning Research Award
• NSF CAREER proposal recommended for funding

Her group has advised 30+ students, including Jinda Han (Apple), Deniz Arsan (UserTesting), and Ali Zaidi (UIUC PhD). She has taught courses like CS 409: The Art of Web Programming and CS 568: User-Centered Machine Learning. Lab projects include the Rico dataset and Opico social media app.