Our paper on Situated Practice Systems was accepted to CSCW 2026! 🎉
Hi, I'm Kapil.
I'm a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Irvine, advised by Anne Marie Piper and Erik Sudderth. My research in human-computer interaction and machine learning aims to develop systems that make accessing visual information interactive and more reliable for blind and low-vision people.
I completed my Ph.D. in Technology and Social Behavior (TSB) (joint degree in Computer Science and Communication Studies) at Northwestern University, advised by Haoqi Zhang and Darren Gergle. My dissertation argued that the next generation of workers must develop effective work practices for self-directing their work process, not just domain- or job-specific skills. I conceptualized and built Situated Practice Systems that provide workers with practice support that help them understand issues in their work practice and scaffolds opportunities to develop effective practices.
My research draws from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Social Computing, the Learning Sciences, Management and Organizational Sciences, and Artificial Intelligence. I take a socio-technical approach to system design and leverage a variety of methods including design research, qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis.
News
Our CHI 2026 paper on image quality issues and VLM captioning received a 🏅 Best Paper Honorable Mention!
Our paper on understanding image quality's effect on product captioning with VLMs was accepted to CHI 2026!
Our paper on what helps or hinders remote work at scale was accepted to CSCW 2025! 🎉 This work was conducted during my research internship at Slack, hosted by Mike Massimi.
Started a postdoc with Anne Marie Piper and Erik Sudderth at the University of California, Irvine.
Defended my dissertation on Situated Practice Systems! Thank you to my advisors, Haoqi Zhang and Darren Gergle, and my committee members, Noshir Contractor and Amy X. Zhang, for their support and feedback.
Publications
Conference & Journal Publications
[7]
Situated Practice Systems: A Computational System for Supporting the Coaching and Practice of Self-Regulation Skills for Innovation Work
Kapil Garg, Darren Gergle, and Haoqi Zhang
[6]
"It's trained by non-disabled people": Evaluating How Image Quality Affects Product Captioning with Vision-Language Models
Kapil Garg, Xinru Tang, Jimin Heo, Dwayne R. Morgan, Darren Gergle, Erik B. Sudderth, and Anne Marie Piper
Best Paper Honorable Mention (Top 5%)
[5]
What Remotely Matters? Understanding Individual, Team, and Organizational Factors in Remote Work at Scale
Kapil Garg, Diego Gómez-Zará, Elizabeth Gerber, Darren Gergle, Noshir Contractor, and Michael Massimi
[4]
Orchestration Scripts: A System for Encoding an Organization's Ways of Working to Support Situated Work
Kapil Garg, Darren Gergle, and Haoqi Zhang
[3]
Understanding the Practices and Challenges of Networked Orchestration in Research Communities of Practice
Kapil Garg, Darren Gergle, and Haoqi Zhang
[2]
Opportunistic Collective Experiences: Identifying Shared Situations and Structuring Shared Activities at Distance
Ryan Louie, Kapil Garg, Jennie Werner, Allison Sun, Darren Gergle, and Haoqi Zhang
[1]
4X: A Hybrid Approach for Scaffolding Data Collection and Interest in Low-Effort Participatory Sensing
Kapil Garg, Yongsung Kim, Darren Gergle, and Haoqi Zhang
Workshop Publications
[1]
Supporting Workers in Developing Effective Collaboration Skills for Complex Work
Evey Huang, Kapil Garg, Diego Gómez-Zará, Julie Hui, Chinmay Kulkarni, Michael Massimi, Elizabeth Churchill, and Elizabeth Gerber
Workshop Organizer
Dissertation
Technical Skills
Programming Languages
PythonJavaScriptTypeScriptHTML/CSSSQLR
Web & Backend
React/Next.jsNode.jsExpress.jsTailwind CSSMongoDBFastAPI
AI, ML, & Data Analysis
Hugging Face TransformersLLMs/VLMsImage Segmentation Models (SAM, etc.)PyTorchscikit-learnpandasNumPy
Research Skills
Design ResearchEthnographyLarge-Scale SurveysRapid PrototypingField EvaluationThematic AnalysisFactor AnalysisRegressionMultilevel ModelsExperiment Design