Dr. Rohit Ashok Khot

On the Subject of me

Hello everyone, I am Rohit Ashok Khot. I am the Director of the HAFP Research Lab; and Senior Research Fellow in the School of Design, working with the Design and Creative Practice ECP at RMIT University, Australia. I am also the recipient of ARC Discovery Early Career Research Fellowship (DECRA) (2019-2022).

Together with his HAFP team wants to change the way we think about the relationship between food and technology—beyond Instagram pics and tech-based media that features food. As he relates, “it’s an often-misunderstood relationship,” but his research aims to make this uneasy relationship palatable for us by changing our perception around how dining and technology can correlate.

Dr. Khot’s research career has been on an upward trajectory ever since he started my PhD in 2012. Within a short span, he has established himself as a leading researcher of international repute in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that is evident through his appointment for the most competitive “Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship”; recipient of the prestigious “Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA)” worth $398,000 (amongst the only four awarded under FOR 0806 and amongst the only three awarded under the FOR 1203 out of the 200 awarded DECRAs); over 50 scholarly refereed articles in high-ranking international conferences (Citations: 1016, h-index:18) and journals including scholarly books on the topics of “Human-Food Interaction” and “Exertion Games”; national and international collaborations; professional service to HCI community through chairing and program committee roles; and leadership at the Exertion Games Lab as Deputy Director (2015-2019) and the HAFP Research Lab as founder and director.

Dr. Khot’s work has been recognized as being aligned with RMIT values (evidenced through multiple RMIT awards including 2020 RMIT Prize for Research Excellence – ECR in Design & 2017 RMIT Prize for Research Excellence – HDR in Technology), creatively exploring the social impacts of the convergence of design and technology and advancing research in the emergent field of Human-Food Interaction. His works explore some of the biggest contemporary wellbeing challenges, offering evidence-based insights into ways that we can manage our health and eating practices within the realities of screen-based cultures. These are issues of global significance particularly in today’s changing climate and work from home necessities. He brings inventive and unconventional design thinking to data driven wellbeing methods and provokes new ideas and inspirations for technology-mediated food futures. The potential benefits of such work are far-reaching and foundational, facilitating outcomes and impacts in both public and industrial areas and could enable the development of strategic research alliances capable of setting and driving new research agendas at the convergence between design, technology, and food.

Full list of publications: Rohit's Google Scholar profile.
My ORCID profile RMIT Staff Profile

Check out my CV for more details:PDF
I am best reached by an email, mail me: rohi...@gmail.com
I am also available at:

Research Highlights

• Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Fellowship (2019-2021).
• 2020 RMIT prize for Research Excellence (ECR).
• RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017-2020).
• 2017 RMIT prize for Research Excellence (HDR).
• SIGCHI Development Fund Grant (2017,2018).
• IBM PhD Fellowship (2014-2015).
• 41 peer-reviewed publications in Tier-A ACM conferences in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), including a best paper and an honorable mention award (Current citations: 388, i-index: 11, h5-index: 12)
• Public exhibitions of my works at eight international academic events.
• Works featured on Mashable Australia, PSFK, SpringWise, 3DPrint.com among others.
• Media coverage on ABC news24, Channel 9 News and various australian radio channels.
• Finalist for the Premier’s Design Awards 2015 and AAMIA awards 2016.
• Finalist for student innovation contest at UIST 2013 and ACM student research competition at CHI 2013.

Capabilities and Research interests

Human Food Interactions (HFI), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Playful Interaction Design, Quantified self (Personal Informatics), Food printing, Tangible and Embodied Interactions, Physical visualizations, 3D printing, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Research through Design, Sports and Spectator interfaces

A short video describes my PhD Research and my Research Philosophy in general:

Publications

Please find a list of my publications. Most of them are available on ACM digital library and are also indexed on Google Scholar and my ORCID profile. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you want to read any of my works.

From the beginning of my research career I have strategically published only in the world’s leading HCI conferences where major international scholars publish their work. In my research area, the CHI Conference, along with TEI, UIST, DIS , and INTERACT are considered the best forums for dissemination of research (all ERA A in the original ranking). Papers in these conferences are peer-reviewed, and have an acceptance rate of around 15-25% each year. Only research that represents a significant advancement in the design of new technology is accepted; however, once published, the work goes on to be widely cited by the international community. Presentation at these conferences is preferred to publishing in journals due to the rapid development of the field.

Journal articles

1. Florian Mueller, Rohit Ashok Khot , Kathrin Gerling and Regan Mandryk (2016), Exertion Games, Foundations and Trends® Human–Computer Interaction: Vol. 10: No. 1, pp 1-86. http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/1100000041
2. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, David Altimira, and Rohit Ashok Khot Reflections on the Design of Exertion Games, Games for Health Journal, 2015, 4(1): 3-7.
3. Simon Stusak, Aurélien Tabard, Franziska Sauka, Rohit Ashok Khot, and Andreas Butz. Activity Sculptures: Exploring the Impact of Physical Visualizations on Running Activity, In Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE, 99 (1), 2014 (Citation count: 7).

Full papers

1. Ti Hoang, Rohit Ashok Khot , Noel Waite, N., and Florian Mueller. 2018. What Can Speculative Design Teach Us About Designing for Healthcare Services? To Appear in Proceedings of the OzCHI 2018. ACM.
2. Yash Dhanpal Mehta, Rohit Ashok Khot , Rakesh Patibanda, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2018. Arm-A-Dine: Towards Understanding the Design of Playful Embodied Eating Experiences. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 299-313. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242710
3. Peter Arnold, Rohit Ashok Khot , and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2018. "You Better Eat to Survive": Exploring Cooperative Eating in Virtual Reality Games. In Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 398-408. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173225.3173238
4. Rohit Ashok Khot , Simon Stusak, Andres Butz, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2017. 10 Design Themes for Creating 3D Printed Physical Representations of Physical Activity Data. In Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2017 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), 85–105. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-319-68059-0_5 (Acceptance rate: 29%).
5. Rohit Ashok Khot , Deepti Aggarwal, Ryan Pennings, Larissa Hjorth, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2017. EdiPulse: Investigating a Playful Approach to Self-monitoring through 3D Printed Chocolate Treats. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17). ACM, 6593-6607.
6. Rohit Ashok Khot ,Josh Andres, Jennifer Lai, Juerg von Kaenel, and Florian Mueller 2016. Fantibles: Capturing Cricket Fan's Story in 3D. In Proceedings of the 2016 conference on Designing interactive systems (DIS '16), ACM, 883-894. (Acceptance rate: 27%)..
7. Rohit Ashok Khot , Jeewon Lee, Deepti Aggarwal, Larissa Hjorth, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. TastyBeats: Designing Palatable Representations of Physical Activity . In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’15). ACM Press (2015), 2933-2942 (Acceptance rate: 23%, Citation count: 1) (Best paper Honorable mention award).
8. Rohit Ashok Khot, Jeewon Lee, Larissa Hjorth, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. TastyBeats: Celebrating Heart Rate Data with a Drinkable Spectacle . In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI’15), ACM Press (2015), 229-232 (Acceptance rate: 22%, Citation count: 1).
9. Rohit Ashok Khot, Larissa Hjorth, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. Understanding Physical Activity through 3D Printed Material Artifacts. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’14), ACM Press (2014), 3835-3844 (Acceptance rate: 22%, Citation count: 18).
10. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Sophie Stellmach, Saul Greenberg, Andreas Dippon, Susanne Boll, Jayden Garner, Rohit Ashok Khot, Amani Naseem, and David Altimira. Proxemics Play: understanding proxemics for designing digital play experiences, In Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems (DIS '14), ACM Press (2014), 533-542 (Acceptance rate: 27%, Citation count: 4).
11. Rohit Ashok Khot, Larissa Hjorth, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. SweatAtoms: Materialising Physical Activity. In Proceedings of The 9th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Matters of Life and Death (IE '13), ACM Press (2013), Article 4 (Citation count: 3).
12. Rohit Ashok Khot, Kannan Srinathan, and Ponnurangam Kumaraguru. WYSWYE: shoulder surfing defense for recognition based graphical passwords, In Proceedings of the 24th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference (OzCHI '12), ACM Press (2012), 2605- 2614 (Acceptance rate: 22%, Citation count: 13).
13. Deepti Aggarwal, Rohit Ashok Khot, and Venkatesh Choppella. uPick: Crowdsourcing Based Approach to Extract Relations among Named Entities, In Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction (India HCI’12), (2012), 47-56 (Citation count: 1).
14. Rohit Ashok Khot, Kannan Srinathan, and Ponnurangam Kumaraguru. MARASIM: a novel jigsaw based authentication scheme using tagging, In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’11), ACM Press (2011), 2605-2614 (Acceptance rate: 26%, Citation count: 8).
15. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. NAPTune: Fine Tuning Graphical Authentication, In Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Human Computer Interaction (India HCI’11), ACM Press (2011), 47-56. (Best paper award).
16. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Venkatesh Choppella DISCOVIR: Designing Interfaces and Structuring Content for Virtual Labs, In Proceedings of 2011 IEEE International Conference on Technology for Education (T4E’11), IEEE press (2011), 121-127 (Citation count: 10).
17. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. GoFish: Fishing Thousand Words Worth A Picture, In Proceedings of 2nd International Conference on Human Computer Interaction (India HCI’10), ACM Press (2010), eWICS BCS, 1-10 (Citation count: 1).
18. Nagaraja Kaushik Gampa, Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. Let Only The Right One In: Privacy Management Scheme For Social Networks, In Proceedings of International Conference on Information Systems Security (ICISS’09), Springer LNCS (2009), 310-317 (Citation count: 1).
19. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. iCAPTCHA: Image Tagging For Free, In Proceedings of Conference on Usable Software and Interface Design (USID’09), (2009), 1-6 (Citation count: 3).
20. Rohit Ashok Khot, Ravikant Poola, Kishore Kothapalli, and Kannan Srinathan. Self-stabilizing Routing Algorithms for Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks, In Proceedings of International Conference on Distributed Computing and Internet Technology (ICDCIT’07), Springer LNCS (2007), 54-66 (Citation count: 2).

Short papers

1. Yan Wang, Zhuying Li, Robert Jarvis, Rohit Ashok Khot , and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2018. The Singing Carrot: Designing Playful Experiences with Food Sounds. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY '18 Extended Abstracts). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 669-676. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3270316.3271512
2. Joseph La Delfa, Robert Jarvis, Rohit Ashok Khot , and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2018. Tai Chi In The Clouds: Using Micro UAV's To Support Tai Chi Practice. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY '18 Extended Abstracts). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 513-519. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3270316.3271511
3. Eshita Sri Arza, Harshitha Kurra, Rohit Ashok Khot , and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2018. Feed the Food Monsters!: Helping Co-diners Chew their Food Better with Augmented Reality. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY '18 Extended Abstracts). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 391-397. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3270316.3271520
4. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Tuomas Kari, Rohit Ashok Khot , Zhuying Li, Yan Wang, Yash Mehta, and Peter Arnold. 2018. Towards Experiencing Eating as a Form of Play. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (CHI PLAY '18 Extended Abstracts). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 559-567. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3270316.3271528
5. Markéta Dolejšová, Rohit Ashok Khot , Hilary Davis, Hasan Shahid Ferdous, and Andrew Quitmeyer. 2018. Designing Recipes for Digital Food Futures. In Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper W10, 8 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3170622
6. Rohit Ashok Khot , Deborah Lupton, Markéta Dolejšová, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. 2017. Future of Food in the Digital Realm. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1342-1345. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3027063.3049283
7. Marketa Dolejsova, Denisa Kera, Cristiano Storni, Rohit Ashok Khot , Ivan John Clement, Inka Pavelka, and Puneet Kishor. 2017. Digital Health & Self-experimentation: Design Challenges & Provocations. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 510-517. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3027063.3027071
8. Florian Mueller, Joe Marshall, Rohit Ashok Khot , Stina Nylander, and Jakob Tholander. 2016. Jogging at CHI . In Proc. CHI EA’16, ACM, 1119-1122.
9. Rohit Ashok Khot, Ryan Pennings and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. EdiPulse: Turning Physical Activity Into Chocolates, In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '15), ACM Press (2015), 331-334.
10. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Joe Marshall, Rohit Ashok Khot, Stina Nylander, and Jakob Tholander. Understanding Sports-HCI by going jogging at CHI. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '15), ACM Press (2015), 869-872.
11. Rohit Ashok Khot, Ryan Pennings and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. EdiPulse: Supporting Physical Activity with Chocolate Printed Messages, In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '15), ACM Press (2015), 1391-1396.
12. Rohit Ashok Khot Exploring Material Representations of Physical Activity. In Proceedings of the 2014 companion publication on Designing interactive systems (DIS Companion '14), ACM Press (2014), 177-180.
13. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Joe Marshall, Rohit Ashok Khot, Stina Nylander, and Jakob Tholander. Jogging with Technology: Interaction Design Supporting Sport Activities. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '14), ACM Press (2014), 1131-1134.
14. Rohit Ashok Khot, Jeewon Lee, Larissa Hjorth, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. SweatAtoms: Understanding Physical Activity through Material Artifacts. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '14), ACM Press (2014), 173-174 (Video showcase finalist).
15. Rohit Ashok Khot, Jeewon Lee, Helmut Munz, Deepti Aggarwal, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. TastyBeats: Making Mocktails with Heartbeats. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '14), ACM Press (2014), 467-470.
16. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. Sweat-Atoms: Turning Physical Exercise into Physical Objects, In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13), ACM Press (2013), 3075-3078 (Citation count: 4).
17. Rohit Ashok Khot Exploring the Role of Materiality in Physical Activity. In Proceedings of 2013 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’13), Doctoral school, 1-4.
18. Rohit Ashok Khot Sweat-Atoms: Crafting Physical Objects with Everyday Exercise. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13), ACM Press (2013), 2701-2706 (Citation count: 5) (Finalist for ACM Student Research Competition).
19. Deepti Aggarwal, Rohit Ashok Khot, Venkatesh Choppella Power of Friends: When Friends Guess About Their Friends’ Guess, In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13), ACM Press (2013), 907-912.
20. Alan Chatham, Ben AM Schouten, Cagdas Toprak, Florian Mueller, Menno Deen, Regina Bernhaupt, Rohit Ashok Khot, and Sebastiaan Pijnappel. Game Jam, In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13), ACM Press (2013), 3175-3178 (Citation count: 5).
21. Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Rohit Ashok Khot, Alan Chatham, Sebastiaan Pijnappel, Chad Toprak, and Joe Marshall. HCI with Sports, In Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '13), ACM Press (2013), 3301-3306 (Citation count: 9).
22. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. PhotoSense: Emergent Semantics Based Approach To Image Annotation, In Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '10), ACM Press (2010), 3301-3306.

Workshop papers & Technical reports

1. Rohit Ashok Khot, Larissa Hjorth, Deepti Aggarwal, and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller. Supporting Autonomy in Physical papers Activity through Material Artifacts. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’14) workshop on Positive Computing, ACM Press (2014).
2. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. Elliminati: Bringing New World Image Order, IIIT-H Technical Report, 1-6.
3. Rohit Ashok Khot, and Kannan Srinathan. IDO: One Time Graphical Password Scheme, IIIT-H Technical Report, 1-8.
4. Rohit Ashok Khot, Siddharatha Redeem, and Kannan Srinathan. New Directions in Secure Multiparty computation, IIIT-H Technical Report, 1-8.

Honors & Awards

Competitive achievements

My research has attracted national and international competitive grant funding. I am a recipient of the prestigious Australian Research Council's Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) worth $398,000; RMIT Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship ($310,479) and IBM PhD Fellowship worth US$20,000. The IBM PhD fellowship is a highly competitive award, and I am one of the only two students from Australia to receive this honour. In addition, I have also received the Australian Computing Society (ACS)’s Foundational scholarship (AU$10,000) and RMIT University’s Higher Degree by Research Travel Grant (AU$2,000) during my candidature. Post PhD, I received SIGCHI Development Fund grant for two years in a row worth USD$12000 (2017 & 2018) to organise Summer School and promote HCI Education. I am also the recipient of RMIT Capacity Development grant ($10,000) to organise FoodCHI symposium.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (July 2012 – Dec 2016)

Thesis title: Understanding Material Representations of Physical Activity
Abstract: My PhD research complements the quantification-centric instrumental view of representing physical activity data in the form of numbers and graphs that appear on screen. I unite three strands of significant design areas namely, personal informatics, physical visualization and Human Food Interaction (HFI) to put forward a new perspective on understanding physical activity through material representations. I have designed and studied three exemplary systems that transform the physical activity data into 3D printed material, palatable and edible forms respectively. The contribution of the work is enveloped in a theoretical design framework that provides guidelines and themes for designers to explore new design possibilities afforded by material representations for supporting physical activity experience.
Advisors: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller , Prof. Larissa Hjorth

Master of Science by Research (Comp. Sci.) (2006-2010)

Thesis title: Human Computation with Perceptive Intelligence
Abstract: My Master’s research contributes knowledge to the field of human computation by exploring the possibilities of utilizing human perceptual abilities towards solving the problems of user authentication and image annotation. I designed a graphical password scheme that offers memorability benefits. Additionally, I also proposed a design framework that supports semantic annotation of images.
Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Kannan Srinathan

Work Experience

Discovery Early Career Research Fellow (Jan 2019 - present)

In this role, I will be designing augmented eating interfaces to promote mindful eating. This project aims to develop and test novel augmented eating interfaces in order to address the contradiction between the concept of mindful eating (no distractions) and the reality of screen cultures (eating with screens). Eating while watching screens can be problematic because it can cause overeating, which can manifest into bigger health concerns such as obesity and heart disease. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the field of human-food interaction. It presents two new augmented eating systems and a socio-technological study of these systems in use within Australian households. The expected outcomes include a framework on how to design interactive systems that encourage mindful eating without compromising the pleasures of screen-based media and the eating experience and a greater theoretical understanding of how to support mindful eating in everyday practice.

Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Jan 2017 - present)

Post my PhD, I was awarded the prestigious Vice Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship at RMIT University, Australia. This is highly competitive award with over 900 applicants for 17 places University wide. In this role, I am researching “ Playful Human Food Interaction ” , where the focus is on using food as a design material to support future dining experiences. I believe and argue that food is not just a means of sustenance but it is a rich reservoir of multisensorial pleasure. However, over the years, our relationship with food is skewed more towards its nutritional value and we are paying less attention to how food can bring joy and people together. As a matter of fact, when we talk about the role of technology in supporting Human Food Interactions, technology is often used to encourage people to eat healthier and to eat better. But in doing so, the pleasures of food often become compromised. My postdoctoral research specifically aims to alter this common perception that food cannot be healthy and pleasurable at the same time. In my research, I am, therefore, devising inventive ways of enriching our interactions with the food using emerging technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Deputy Director(Jan 2016 - present)

I also serve as the Deputy Director of the Exertion Games Lab, a leading research laboratory within the Centre for Game Design Research at RMIT University. The lab is known for its pioneering work around exertion games and playful interfaces for the active body. I initiated and pivoted the lab’s interest towards Human Food Interactions. The lab currently has five active food related projects, including two PhD dissertations topics . In this role, I offer mentorship to students at individual and group levels. From past four years, I have organised weekly reading group meetings (where we read and discuss interdisciplinary research papers) and paper writing sessions (where we collectively offer feedback on each other’s writing). These sessions have been instrumental in developing critical research thinking and helped the lab grow as a team. These sessions have been productive and resulted into 6 masters completion , 2 PhD completions and over 40 peer-reviewed publications in tier-1 HCI conferences (CHI, DIS, TEI and CHI PLAY), including two best paper awards and four honorable mention awards in last four years.

Research Officer (July 2016 – Dec 2016)

As a research officer, I published one of my PhD projects EdiPulse as a full paper at CHI 2017 (Khot et al. 2017) and co-authored a journal article on Exertion Games (Mueller et al. 2016) that was published in prestigious Foundations and Trends in HCI journal. During this time, I was also responsible for managing the CHI paper writing sessions that resulted into 4 full papers at ACM CHI 2018 (Acceptance rate: 22%).

PhD Candidate (July 2012 – Dec 2016)

My PhD research contributed inventive strategies for turning physical activity data into delightful physical representations such as 3D printed plastic artifacts, sports drinks, and 3D printed chocolate treats – which are personalized based on an individual’s efforts. Through these systems, I offer a fresh perspective on engaging with one’s physical activity data and contribute new interaction design knowledge towards making physical activity more pleasurable and fulfilling. This work resulted into 20 peer-reviewed publications in tier-1 HCI conferences and won the honorable mention award at CHI 2015 (given to top 5% of the accepted papers). My PhD work was finalist for the prestigious Premier’s Design Awards in 2015 and Amy Awards in 2016. My PhD dissertation was highly commended by renowned international examiners and I also received 2017 RMIT Prize for Research Excellence - HDR (Technology) . This award is given to the outstanding Higher Degree by Research (HDR) candidate from the University who has achieved the highest levels of excellence in research during the completion of their degree in the category of Technology. More achievements are described in the next section.

IBM PhD Fellowship and Internship (Jan 2015 – July 2015)

During my PhD, I was awarded the prestigious IBM PhD fellowship for the year 2014-2015 and I was only one of the two Australians to receive this honour that year. As an IBM PhD fellow, I did a six months internship at IBM Research, Australia where I explored tangible visualizations of sports data on social media. This work resulted into a full paper at Tier-1 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) 2016 (acceptance rate: 26%).

Research Associate (Mar 2012 – Apr 2012)

I was a Research Associate at IIIT Delhi where I proposed a unique solution to prevent shoulder-surfing attacks on systems using PIN based passwords (e.g ATMs and Point of Sell (POS) devices). This work has been published as a full paper at ACM Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (OzCHI) in 2012 (Khot et al. 2012).

Project Engineer (July 2010 – Nov 2011)

Before joining RMIT as a PhD student, I was the Technical lead in the Software Engineering for Virtual Labs and Learning Environment (SEVILLE) project at IIIT Hyderabad, India. SEVILLE is a Government of India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development funded project on building a software architecture and design for the virtual laboratories for undergraduate science education. I was sole responsible for building a academic-friendly web framework for virtual lab development. This framework was published as a full paper (Khot et al. 2011) in IEEE Technology 4 Education (T4E) conference in 2011 and eight renowned Indian universities are currently using the framework to create and manage virtual laboratories of different scientific subjects.

Masters by Research Candidate (July 2006 – Nov 2009)

My Masters thesis on ‘Human Computation with Perceptive Intelligence’ harnessed human perceptual abilities towards improving security and memorability of picture based passwords. My masters work was published as a full paper at ACM CHI 2011 (acceptance rate: 26%) and it also won ‘ Best Paper ’ award (worth $1000) at ACM IndiaHCI 2011. During my masters, I was awarded NIXIE fellowship and Microsoft travel grant ($2000) for two years in a row. My Masters thesis was also the first thesis in the field of HCI from my University and it had strong influence on three students who took up research in HCI, leading to 3 Masters completions.

Supervision

Are you passionate about food, technology, and design? Are you the person who thinks "food+tech+design" do not often gel well and wants to contribute better ways to blend them then why not do a Ph.D. with me :) RMIT School of Design's midyear rounds for PhD applications will start soon, Get in touch with me if you are interested. More details are at: RMIT School of Design PhD rounds

I consider myself fortunate to be working with a passionate and dedicated strong interdisciplinary team.These are students with whom I am currently working with.

Yan Wang (PhD candidate, RMIT University, Australia)

Abstract: A playful attitude towards everyday practice can contribute to a fulfilling life. This has led researchers in Human-Food Interaction (HFI) to explore playful eating experiences, however the sense of sound has only received limited attention. “Gustosonic” refers to linkages between the act of eating and listening within a combined multisensory experience and this research aims to design and evaluate the use of three systems that enable interactive playful gustosonic experiences. Firstly, I have designed a capacitive sensing system that generates unique digital sounds through eating ice cream to facilitate a playful eating experience. Secondly, I will develop a system to support the social experience around playful gustosonic experiences. Thirdly, I will develop a system that focuses on the aural side of mediation to offer an engaging crossmodal playful gustosonic experience. Finally, I will use the knowledge gained from designing and studying their use to build a theoretical framework for the design of playful gustosonic experiences. This research will contribute to a conceptual design understanding of the interrelationship between play, food and sounds and ultimately guides designers in developing playful experiences through sounds around the everyday practice of eating.
Co-supervised with: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

Ti Hoang (PhD candidate, RMIT University, Australia)

Abstract: to be added.
Co-supervised with: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

Joseph La Delfa (Masters candidate, RMIT University, Australia)

Abstract: Meditative movements such as tai chi offer physical and mental health benefits. However, engaging with meditative movement can be challenging as it requires attention, a limited resource. To address this, I propose the use of micro unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that follow the movements of a person’s hands whilst providing different kinds of feedback. The appearance of the micro UAVs will be designed to affect the way they are understood and interacted with. Their lack of physical contact when in use means they do not impede the physiological feedback that leads to meditative movement. I will use thematic analysis methods of semi structured interviews to evaluate the ability of the system to facilitate meditative movement. A research through design approach will be used to deliver design direction for movement feedback and physical appearance that facilitate mediative movement. This system and the associated study will contribute to the design of interactive systems that facilitate meditative movement.
Co-supervised with: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

Yash Mehta (Visiting research student, IIITDM, India)

Abstract: There is an increasing trend in the Augmented Reality field that concerns the in- tersection between technology and food. However, so far, most of it is focused on the preparation or presentation of food, but not so much on the food once it goes inside the mouth. Hence, we explore this as a fun and interactive way to showcase the food effects on our body once it has passed through our mouth to the intestines. We create this experience on Hololens, an augmented reality based platform, to drive the possibilities of creating a cross-modal gameplay experience, which transforms the increase of visual sense (i.e. observing the digestion of partner’s food in their anatomies, while wearing Hololens) into an exciting game element. Our work aims to inspire and guide design thinking to- wards using these underexplored interaction methods.
Co-supervised with: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

Peter Arnold (Visiting masters research student, LMU, Germany)

Abstract: This work explores how to design virtual reality (VR) games that use eating to interact within the VR game. After creating a setup that is able to capture chewing and thereby eating, mobile VR game prototypes had been built that facilitate eating as different game mechanics. These iterations led to a game called "You Better Eat to Survive!" in which eating real food is essential to stay alive in the game. To further improve game design a user study has been conducted that has participants play the game and afterwards answer interview questions to find out about what they liked and disliked about the game. These findings help to answer the research question how to design virtual reality games that use eating as interaction.
Co-supervised with: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

Eshita Azra & Harshitha Kurra (Visiting research students, IIITDM, India)

Abstract: Chewing is crucial for digestion and as mindful eating suggests, it is important that we do it properly. Despite this not many people chew their food properly. To help facilitate proper chewing, we developed ”Feed the food monsters!”, a two-player Augmented Reality (AR) game that aims to engage co-diners in proper chewing using their bodies as play. This game allows diners to view each other’s chewing behaviour through a playful interface that is overlaid on their torso. In this game, players wear HMDs and guide each other to chew properly in order to keep the food monsters quiet. Besides supporting chewing in a social dining setting, this game also contributes to AR-based games where chewing actions are mapped to game actions. Ultimately, with this work, we hope to engage people in the practice of proper chewing in a fun and a pleasurable way.
Co-supervised with: Prof. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller

Media Coverage & Public speaking

Media coverage

Talks & Demonstrations

Organised events

SIGCHI Summer School on Experimental Play

Abstract: Building on the inaugural SIGCHI Summer School on Playful Interactions held at RMIT University in 2017, the 2018 international summer school is centred on the theme of “ Experimental Play ”. This summer school is co-located with ACM CHI PLAY 2018 , a SIGCHI conference which is also happening in Melbourne, Australia, just the days before.
Visit: Summer School 2018

Designing Recipes for Digital Food Lifestyles

Abstract: Digital food technologies such as diet trackers, food sharing apps, and 'smart' kitchenware offer promising yet debatable food futures. While proponents suggest its potential to prompt efficient food lifestyles, critics highlight the underlying technosolutionism of digital food innovation and limitations related to health safety and data privacy. This workshop addresses both present and near-future digital food controversies, and seeks to extend the existing body of Human-Food Interaction (HFI) research. Through scenarios and food-tech prototyping navigated by bespoke Digital Food Cards, we will unpack issues and suggest possible design approaches.
Visit: CHI 2018 Workshop

Food Workshop to promote STEM

Abstract: We run 8 workshops on food printing and digital food practices as a part of "STEM in-situ: Imagining Entrepreneurial futures (Australian Gov. Dept Business & Innovation)" project to promote STEM education among school girls. The project is led by Prof. Patricia McLaughlin .
Visit: STEM project

FoodCHI 2017

Abstract: FoodCHI brings together national and international experts across design, digital media, art and sociology to participate in critical discussions around the role of design and technology in shaping of future foodscapes. Our aims are to strengthen the FoodCHI community and help it move forward via sharing and building on experiences, issues, opportunities, and challenges across related fields of research and practice. There will be networking opportunities across different disciplines, knowledge exchange, community engagement, and sharing of ideas and experiences in a bid to chart robust approaches for technologically enabled food futures.
Visit: FoodCHI 2017

SIGCHI Summer School on Playful Interactions

Abstract: SIGCHI Summer School on Playful Interactions was jointly organised by the Centre for Game Design Research and the Exertion Games Lab at RMIT University, Australia with a generous support from ACM SIGCHI. The summer school on Playful Interactions was held in Melbourne, Australia, between November 10 and November 14, 2017, two weeks prior to the 29th Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction conference (OzCHI) 2017. The summer school spanned across five days with first day dedicated to invited talks by internationally renowned experts and a half-day doctoral consortium where students presented their own research while the remaining four days involved practical implementations and hand-on activities on four diverse topics related to game design. Overall, we hosted 21 students (6 overseas and 15 Australian) for this event.
Visit: Summer School 2018

SIG Future of Food in Digital Realm

Abstract: Using food printing as an exemplar of the digital food movement, we have structured this SIG meeting on the topic of the future of food in the digital realm. We aim to use this SIG to bring together researchers and practitioners from multiple disciplines including personal fabrication, design and creative practice, quantified self, food design, health and nutrition, and physical visualization, in order to develop a mutual understanding of competing/related issues around digital food.
Visit: Summer School 2018

INTERACT 2017: Eat your Data Workshop

Abstract: This workshop brought together researchers and practitioners from different communities including personal fabrication, design and creative practice, quantified self, food design, health and nutrition, interaction design, physical visualization to develop a joint understanding of competing/related issues on printing food, data representation and its effect on multiple domains including health and society.
Visit: Eat your own data workshop 2017

Services

Professional Affiliations

• Member of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
• Member of Special Interest group on Human Computer Interaction (SIGCHI).
• Primarily affiliated to the RMIT “Design and Creative Practice (DCP)” Platform, while my work also bridges other ECPs in “Information and Systems (Engineering)”, “Social change” and “Urban Futures”. These Enabling Capability Platforms connect RMIT researchers across multiple disciplines to leverage research excellence and innovation capability in a way that creates value and enables RMIT’s vision of delivering significant economic, social and environmental impact.
• member of RMIT’s interdisciplinary “Design for Wellbeing” and “HEALTH (Health, Education, Arts, Learning, Technologies, Humanities)” network.
• Member of Australian Computer Society (ACS).
• Member of DataPhys community.

External engagement

I am an active member of ACM SIGCHI FoodCHI, a global food and computer-human interaction research network . I am the creator and the admin of FoodCHI Facebook Community that serves as a open platform for researchers to come together and share their ideas around Human Food Interaction. The group at the moment hosts 34 members coming from different disciplines. I also maintain a strong web presence of my work on http:/datamaterialities.org and http://rohitashokkhot.com as well as on social media platforms. Videos of my works on YouTube have crossed over 30K views while my research presentations slides on SlideShare have received over 5000 hits .

I serve on program committees for leading national and international Tier-1 HCI conferences that include Associate Chair role for DIS 2016, DIS 2018 and TEI (2015-2018); Co-chair of FoodCHI 2017; co-chair for Student Game Competition CHI PLAY 2018; Program Committee member for CHI LBW (2014-2016) and OzCHI 2017. I am also a member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and SIGCHI (Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction) from last eight years, where I have actively contributed both as an author and a reviewer. Recently, together with his colleagues from the Centre for Game Design Research, I organised the first SIGCHI-sponsored Summer School on “Playful Interactions” in 2017, furthering the advancement of PhD candidates’ careers in the games field on the southern hemisphere. I also secured the funding to organise the follow up Summer School in 2018 which will be co-located with CHI PLAY 2018. I also have an active involvement in the organisation of ACM CHI PLAY conference, happening for the first time in Australia in 2018.

• co-chair, Student Game Competition, ACM CHI PLAY 2018.
• co-chair, Student Design Competition, IndiaHCI 2018.
• co-organier, FoodCHI 2017.
• Program committee member:ACM DIS 2018, ACM TEI 2018, ACM TEI 2017, ACM DIS 2017, ACM TEI 2017, ACM DIS 2016, ACM TEI 2016, ACM TEI 2015, ACM CHI WiP 2014, ACM CHI WiP 2015, ACM OzCHI 2013, ACM IE 2013.
• • Reviewer: ACM CHI 2017, ACM DIS 2016, ACM CHI Play 2016, ACM CHI Play 2014, ACM DIS 2014, ACM AH 2014, ACM CHI 2014, ACM CHI 2013, ACM CHI 2012, ACM UIST 2012, ACM DPPI 2013, ACM OZCHI 2012, IEEE S&P 2011, ACM CHI 2011, ACM CHI 2010, ACM IUI 2012.
• Organiser for the first virtual AC subcommittee meeting for CHI 2016.
• Co-organiser: Self-experimentation workshop at ACM CHI 2017, Game Jam workshop at ACM CHI 2013, SIG meeting at ACM CHI 2013, ACM CHI 2014, ACM CHI 2015, Designing Login Interfaces for Mobiles at IndiaHCI 2012, DOCTYPE HTML5 workshop 2011.
• Student volunteer for CHI 2013 and National workshop on Usability design 2011.

News & Updates