About
Dr. Mallavarapu is a Computer Scientist who works as Technology and Learning Sciences Postdoctoral Researcher at Digital Promise, where she investigates how CS researchers engage in the field of educational research specifically by applying her expertise in computational methods (e.g Social Network Analysis and Natural language processing) to analyze the state-of-art of the field of artificial intelligence as is being applied to educational research. At Digital Promise Global, she works within the context of an NSF-funded research center called CIRCLS; which is a community hub for over 350 researchers who apply Computer Science methods and techniques to education. Dr.Mallavarapu's research interests include implementing artificial intelligence-driven computational methods and tools to improve learning and education in open-ended social learning settings (e.g. museums, zoos, science centers). These methods allow her to collect and analyze how people behave and learn in social settings, which she uses to improve the learning and visit experiences for the visitors. Her doctoral work at the New York Hall of Science and her work with University of Pittsburgh, have a special focus of using data and intelligent implementations for the benefit of underrepresented communities. She is currently working with group of researchers in Pittsburgh to design a data-literacy tool for underrepresented communities to help them engage in data advocacy to improve the neighborhood and communities.