Hi, I'm Saba! 👋

Background

I am an Instructor and Research Faculty in the Department of Computer Science at Tennessee Technological University (TTU) where I teach data science and AI courses and lead a research direction in human-centered AI. My work sits at the intersection of human-computer interaction, human-AI interaction, and digital health.

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Population Health Intelligence Lab (PopHI-Lab), led by Associate Prof. Arash Shaban-Nejad, at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), where I worked on explainable AI and mobile health for cancer care. I was also a Visiting Scholar at the Game User Interaction and Intelligence (GUII) Lab, led by Prof. Magy Seif El-Nasr, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, researching human-centered AI.

I earned my PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at the Center for Ubiquitous Computing at the University of Oulu, under the supervision of Associate Prof. Simo Hosio. During 2023 and 2024 I was a visiting graduate scholar at the Tech4Good Lab, led by Associate Prof. David Lee, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before that, in 2022, I was a visiting PhD student at the Media Informatics and Human-Computer Interaction Groups at LMU Munich, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Albrecht Schmidt and Associate Prof. Sven Mayer.

Current Projects

• Simulating Empathic Interactions with Synthetic LLM-Generated Cancer Patient Personas.

News

• Aug 19, 2026: I co-presented an invited talk, "AI in Healthcare," with Dr. Doug Talbert and Dr. Jesse Roberts at the TN Department of Health, Cookeville, TN.
• Aug 1, 2026: I joined Tennessee Tech University as a faculty member in the Department of Computer Science.
• Jul 30, 2026: Our paper "Toward a Feature-Based Regulatory Benchmark for User-Centered SaMD Design in Cancer Care" was selected as an Editors' Choice article for April to June 2026 in BMJ Health & Care Informatics.
• Mar 8, 2026: Attended the fourth annual Bay Area HCI gathering at Santa Clara University.
• Feb 10, 2026: Gave a talk at the Department of Health Science at the California State University, Long Beach.
• Apr 13, 2025: Attended the third annual Bay Area HCI gathering at UC Berkeley.
• Jan 1, 2025: I began working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the PopHI Lab at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).
• Dec 5, 2024: Attended the 2nd Annual UCSC Computational Media Industry Advisory Board Meeting at the UCSC Silicon Valley Campus in Santa Clara.
• Dec 3, 2024: Gave a talk at the UCSC Computational Media group at UCSC Silicon Valley Campus, Santa Clara.
• Nov 15, 2024: Defended my PhD thesis on November 15, 2024! Hooray, I’m officially a doctor now! 😊
• Oct 21-23, 2024: Attended the 2024 Halfway to the Future Symposium in Santa Cruz, California.