Hello! This is Sayan.

Academic CV

About Me

I am a doctoral candidate advised by Dr. David Ribes at the department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington (Seattle). At deLAB, I study technical systems alongside the people, politics, and institutions that shape them.

Previously, my work examined Google's Real Tone, the Pixel camera technology built to capture darker skin tones accurately, and what it reveals about how technology responds to public critique.

My dissertation traces the trajectories of two skin tone measurement instruments, the Fitzpatrick Skin Type scale and the Monk Skin Tone scale developed at Google and Harvard, across machine learning, AI fairness research, and clinical dermatology. It examines the conditions under which social critique becomes technical reform, and follows the consequences of that reform into biomedical practice.

Across projects spanning AI, energy, and scientific infrastructure, I bring a strong social computing and STS (Science and Technology Studies) background, rigorous qualitative and mixed methods, and a commitment to building technology that is equitable and accountable.

Publications

Shana Lee Hirsch, Pedro F. P. Brandão-Dias, Sayan Bhattacharjee, Michelle A. Hauer, and Yin Cheong Aden Ip. 2026. Embracing Environmental DNA (eDNA): Trust, Skepticism, and Competence in an Emerging Method. Environmental DNA. [In Press]
Sayan Bhattacharjee and David Ribes. 2025. Technical Responses To Critique: The Case Of Skin Tone. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’25), April 26-May 1, 2025, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15 pages.[Honorable Mention]
Pooja Upadhyay, Sayan Bhattacharjee, and Shreyasha Paudel. 2024. Positionality of Researchers Identifying with the "Global South": Shared Heritages, Ways of Thinking and Doing Research. In Companion of the 2024 Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW Companion ’24), November 9–13, 2024, San Jose, Costa Rica. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 5 pages.

Teaching (Graduate)

HCDE 501: Theoretical Foundations [Instructor on Record]
HCDE 517: Usability Studies [TA]
HCDE 519: Qualitative Research Methods [TA]
HCDE 508: Visual Communication Design [TA]

Conferences and Workshops

4S 2026 Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Conference: TechnoPower • Technoscientific Futures, October 7–10, 2026, Toronto, Canada. Presenting "Critique in Developing Dermatological AI: The Case of Skin Tone Scales" on the panel "Communities of Critique" co-organized with David Ribes.
SKAT Today: Meeting the Moment, Engendering Just Futures, ASA Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology pre-conference, August 7, 2026, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA. Presented "Pigment and Pixels: Translating Fitzpatrick Skin Type Scale from Dermatology to Computer Vision" (with Durgesh Solanki).
4S 2025 Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Annual Conference, September 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA. Presented "Skin in the Game: Tracing Critique in the Emergence of a Novel Skin Tone Scale for AI/ML" on the panel “Critique in, for and with Responsible Innovation”.
AAS 2025 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference, March 2025, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Presented paper "Skin and Tones: Translating the Social in Consumer Smartphone Camera Technologies" on the panel “Fields of Translation: Navigating Knowledge, Power and Culture in Contemporary India”.
CSCW 2023 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, October 14-18, 2023, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Attended and presented an extended abstract at Historicism in/as CSCW Method: Research, Sensibilities, and Design workshop.

Research

History of the US Electrical Grid and Urban Infrastructure, with Dr. Veronica Jacome at Temple University (Summer 2026)
Trust and Skepticism in Environmental DNA Methods, with the UW eDNA Collaborative and Dr. Shana Hirsch (2025–2026)
Community Perspectives on Offshore Wind with Dr. Shana Lee Hirsch (2024 - 2025)
the Production of Astronomical Knowledge in LSST with Dr. Anissa Tanweer (2023)
the research infrastructures of MACS/WIHS Combined Cohort Study (MWCCS) with Dr. David Ribes (2021)

Earlier Work

Previously, I worked as Project Manager (Production) at the Center for Education Innovation and Action Researchin Mumbai, India on their CLIx project. I also worked as an ethnographer with the For Digital Dignity project. I cherish the teaching-learning environment greatly: I have been actively engaged in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate level since 2019.

[older] multimedia projects.

Sayan Bhattacharjee 2026

Multimedia Projects