I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science and a Schwartz Reisman Institute graduate fellow at the University of Toronto. I am a member of the Dynamics Graphics Project (DGP) lab and Third Space research group, where I am supervised by Dr. Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed. I am advised by Dr. Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed (chair), Dr. Robert Soden, Dr. Steve Easterbrook, Dr. Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, and Dr. Kentaro Toyama on my Ph.D. dissertation committee. In addition to my CS Ph.D., I am doing a doctoral specialization in South Asian Studies from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.

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My research in human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative works and social computing (CSCW), and information and communication technologies for development (ICTD) is at the intersection of faith and computation. Through ethnographic, computational, and design research, I study faith-based groups and institutions to explore how religious, spiritual, and traditional ethics and politics are excluded from computing technologies. I develop theories and design socio-technical systems where plural forms of values and ethics can coexist. My ongoing research addresses online harms -- especially those that are related to faith and ideologies (such as Islamophobia) -- and ethical aspects of computing technologies. In doing so, I often draw on theories and concepts from computer science and critical social sciences.

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I was born and raised in Bangladesh, a beautiful South Asian country. I speak Bengali and English. If we ever meet, please call me Rifat -- I go by my last name. When I am not reading, writing, researching, or teaching, I am running (I ran a half-marathon), visiting new places, singing or humming songs, cooking, or watching a TV serial.