Vishal Sharma

Human-Computer Interaction, Responsible AI, Critical Computing, Sustainability, Climate Justice, Post-growth, More Than Human, Global Development

• ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Distinguished Reviewer Board TOCHI 2026
• Special Recognition for Sustainable Practices, ACM CHI 2025

Vishal Sharma is a computer scientist, HCI researcher-theorist, and an assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He directs the ROOT (Reworlding Our Orientations to Technology) Lab, which investigates how emerging technologies shape and are shaped by the socio-cultural, political-economic, and ecological worlds around them, as well as the design and development of technologies rooted in care for the planet and its residents. He holds a PhD in human-centered computing from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an MS in computer & information science from the University of California Irvine, and a BE in computer science and engineering from Chitkara University, India. He was a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He also worked as a software engineer at Informatica Inc., developing automated software testing frameworks.

Sharma examines how people interact with emerging technologies amid climate vulnerability, labor precarity, and structural inequality, and how such technologies can be (re)designed to nurture socio-ecologically just and sustainable futures for all, including more-than-human life forms. His work conceptualizes Post-growth Informatics as a critical area of inquiry that questions unsustainable and unjust profit-driven technological innovation and reorients it toward sufficiency, care, and collective well-being. His work has been supported by Microsoft Research, the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, and the National Science Foundation. He founded the Post-Growth HCI Collective. His research values are elaborated in the reflective essay: Reflection, Reckoning, and Refusal.

Sharma, V., Kumar, N., Nardi, B. Post-growth Human–Computer Interaction. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 31(1), 1-37. 2023. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3624981

Sharma, V., Kumar, N.. Sustainability, Development, and Human–Computer Interaction. Proceedings ACM 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '25). Association for Computing Machinery. 2025. Special Recognition for Sustainable Practices. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713663

Sharma, V., Mohan, A., Kumar, N. Whose Data Builds the City? Critical Data Practices for Socio-Environmentally Just Urbanization. ACM 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26). Association for Computing Machinery. 2026. **https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3772318.3791818

Sharma, V., Mehta, S., Kumar, N., Seth, A. Whose Participation Counts? Towards Technology-Mediated Equitable Futures of Development Work. Proceedings ACM Human-Computer Interaction, CSCW. 2024. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686979

Sharma, V., Mather, E*., Mirza-Babaei, P., Kumar, N. Beyond Extraction? Generating Games With AI, Responsibly. 2026. In Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. 2026. https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3800645.3813025

Sharma, V., Bray, K., Kumar, N., Grinter, R. It Takes (at least) Two: The Work to Make Romance Work. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 566, 1–17.  2023. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3580709

Sharma, V., Bray, K., Kumar, N. and Grinter, R. Romancing the Algorithm: Navigating Constantly, Frequently, and Silently Changing Algorithms for Digital Work. Proceedings ACM Human-Computer Interaction 6, CSCW2, Article 538 (November 2022), 29 pages. 2022. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555651

Sharma, V., Nardi, B., Norton, J., Tsaasan, A. Towards safe spaces online: A study of Indian matrimonial websites. In Human-Computer Interaction–INTERACT 2019: 17th IFIP TC 13 International Conference, Paphos, Cyprus, 2–6, Proceedings, Part III 17 (pp. 43-66). Springer International Publishing. Interaction Design for International Development Award. 2019. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29387-1_4

Nigatu. H*., Shahid, F*., Sharma, V., Oppong, A., Thomas, M., and Ahmed, S. UnWEIRDing Peer Review in Human–Computer Interaction. ACM 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26). Association for Computing Machinery. 2026. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3772318.3791553

Sharma, V. Reflection, Reckoning, and Refusal: A Dissertation Journey. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students. 2025. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3778049

Post-growth HCI, Digital Tech and Sustainability Seminar, Uppsala University, 2026
Responsible AI at Work, Business School, University of Edinburgh, 2026
Technology-Enabled Transitions to Socio-ecologically Just Futures, University of Bath, 2026
Whose Data Builds the City? Critical Data Practices for Socio-Environmentally Just Urbanization, ACM CHI 2026
Responsible AI at Work, Digitalize in Stockholm, 2025
Responsible AI for Work and Planet, Postdoc Seminar, University of Notre Dame, 2025
Responsible AI at Work, Lucy Family Institute of Data and Society, University of Notre Dame, 2025
Technology-Enabled Sustainable Futures, School of Environment, Society, and Sustainability, University of Utah, 2024
HCI and Sustainability, Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, Georgia Tech, 2023