S [dot] Karanam [at] uu [dot] nl
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Cognitive aspects of
Information Search
Human Computer
Interaction, Usability
CURRENT AFFILIATION
October 2014 - Till date
Post-Doctoral Researcher,
Utrecht University,
Buys Ballot Laboratory, Princetonplein 5,
Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Phone : +31-0644496788
Understanding and modeling the influence of cognitive factors on webnavigation and information search process as a whole.
Usability evaluation techniques, Usability testing with behavioral and eye tracking studies.
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Department of Information and
Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Project MISSION: Modeling and Supporting Web Search and Navigation by Older Adults, in collaboration with Aline Chevalier, Mylene Sanchiz from Universitiet Toulouse and Wai Tat Fu, Jessie Chin from University of Illinois. As part of this project, working on extending cognitive models of web-navigation to include differences in search behavior caused by aging.
EDUCATION
2007-April 2011
2003-2007
PhD in Computer Science and Engineering, IIIT-Hyderabad (In collaboration with Utrecht University) .
Thesis : A cognitive model of web-navigation based
on semantic information from pictures
Advisor : Prof. Bipin Indurkhya
Co-Advisor : Prof. Herre van Oostendorp (Utrecht
University, The Netherlands)
BTech in Computer Science and Engineering,
Hons in Cognitive Science, IIIT-Hyderabad (CGPA: 7.7/10)
Final Year Project : Cognitive modeling of aesthetic principles
underlying art
Advisor : Prof. Bipin Indurkhya
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
October 2012 – August 2014 Research Scientist, Xerox Research Centre-India.
January – October 2012 Research Consultant, Xerox Research Centre-India.
SharePrint
Designed and implemented an internet portal called SharePrint which encourages physical sharing of printed material. It has a dashboard where its users can post requests for articles, monitor others requests etc.
Integrated this successfully with a virtual currency based (GreenPoints) system in Xerox’s European research lab.
CrowdUtility
CrowdUtility is a recommendation and scheduling engine that takes requestors input in the form of batch size and SLA constraints, runs its

May – December 2011
January – March 2010
October – December 2008
April – September 2008 models internally and generates a recommendation as to which platform to post tasks to. It also provides the option of intelligently scheduling the batch to achieve the optimum performance.
Crowdsourced Form Digitization
Successfully implemented and delivered to a Xerox business group, a solution to digitize health insurance forms using crowd workers. This solution is an end-to-end solution starting from registering of forms, splitting them (for enhanced security), creation of tasks, aggregation of results and payment handling.
PostDoc Intern, Hewlett Packard Labs, Bangalore, India.
Explored mechanisms to support complex exploratory tasks on the web such as planning for a holiday.
Short Stay Fellow at Utrecht University
Collaborated with Prof. Herre van Oostendorp from Department of
Information and Computing Sciences. Developed a 3D simulated environment of a hospital from source code of Half Life game and explored navigation behaviors in real environments.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Instructor
Teaching Assistant
Usability Engineering : Monsoon 2009
Supported the course in Monsoon 2010.
Topics in HCI, Spring 2011
Multi-text processing, Spring 2011
Advanced Cognitive Science: Spring 2008
Introduction to Cognitive Science: Monsoon 2007
PUBLICATIONS
Book Chapters
2015
Journals
2016
Short Stay Fellow at Utrecht University
Collaborated with Prof. Herre van Oostendorp and Prof. Mari Carmen from Department of Information and Computing Sciences. Conducted experiment exploring fully the interactive role of text and graphics in locating web-page widgets
Helped initiating a collaboration with Rediff.com and conducted various usability tests using eye tracker on their portal.
Van Oostendorp, H., Aggarwal., S. & Karanam, S. cognitive model of web-navigation
Development of a
(Accepted). J.Leon & I. Escudero
Dominguez (Eds.), Trends in Reading Research, John Benjamin Publ.
Karanam, S., Van Oostendorp, H., Sanchiz, M., Chevalier, A., Chin, J. &
Fu, W.T.
Performance of cognitive models of web-navigation on real websites. Special Issue on 'Search as Learning' in Journal of Information
Science, 42(1), 94-113.

2012
2015
2013
Conferences
2016
2015
2014
2013
Bhattacharya, S., Celis, L.E., Chander, D., Dasgupta, K., Karanam, S &
Vaibhav, R. Crowds of Crowds: Performance based modelling and optimization over multiple crowdsourcing platforms. Human
Computation, 2(1), 105-131.
Karanam, S., Oostendorp, H. van., Puerta Melguizo, M.C. & Indurkhya,
B. Interaction of semantic and graphical information in locating web page widgets . Behaviour and Information Technology.
Karanam, S., Oostendorp, H. van., Puerta Melguizo, M.C. & Indurkhya ,
B. Embedding semantic information from pictures into cognitive modeling of web-navigation . Special Issue of European Review of
Applied Psychology.
62(2). 83-92.
Oostendorp, H. van., Karanam, S. & Indurkhya, B. CoLiDeS+Pic: A cognitive model of web-navigation based on semantic information from pictures . Special Issue on Cognitive Modeling of Web-Navigation,
Behaviour and Information Technology.
31(1). 17-30.
Karanam, S., Oostendorp, H. van. & Indurkhya. B. Evaluating
CoLiDeS+Pic: The role of relevance of pictures in user navigation behaviors. Special Issue on Cognitive Modeling of Web-Navigation,
Behaviour and Information Technology.
31(1). 31-40.
Karanam, S., Van Oostendorp, H. & Indurkhya, B. (2012). A study on the role of non-hyperlink text on web-navigation. Computer Science.
13(3). 5-22.
Karanam, S. & Van Oostendorp, H. Age-related differences in the content of search queries when reformulating . (Accepted). ACM
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016) .
Karanam, S., Van Oostendorp, H., Sanchiz, M., Chevalier, A., Chin, J. &
Fu, W.T. Modeling and predicting information search behavior.
5th
International Conference on Web-Intelligence, Mining and Semantics
(WIMS 2015), Article Number 7.
Chander, D., Bhattacharya, S., Celis, L. E., Dasgupta, K., Karanam, S.,
Rajan, V. & Gupta, A. CrowdUtility: A Recommendation System for
Crowdsourcing Platforms.
In Second AAAI Conference on Human
Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2014).
Karanam, S., Chander, D., Celis, L.E., Dasgupta, K. & Rajan, V.
Adaptive Performance Optimization over Crowd Labor Channels. In
Second AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing
(HCOMP 2014).
Dasgupta, K., Rajan, V., Karanam, S., Ponnavaikko, K., Balamurugan, C.
& Piratla, N. CrowdUtility: Know The Crowd That Works For You.
CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

2011
2010
2012
2009
2008
Others / Non-archival
2013
2008
Karanam, S., Rajan, V. & Dasgupta, K. Understanding dynamic performance variability across multiple crowdsourcing platforms.
Proceedings of ACM WebScience 2013.
Rajan, V., Bhattacharya, S., Celis, L.E., Dasgupta, K. & Karanam, S.
CrowdControl: An online learning approach for optimal task scheduling in a dynamic crowd platform.
ICML ’13 Workshop:
Machine Learning Meets Crowdsourcing.
Van Oostendorp, H. & Karanam. S. Navigating in a Virtual
Environment with Model-Generated Support . European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics ECCE 2013 .
Van Oostendorp, H. & Karanam S. Using a Cognitive Model of Web-
Navigation to Generate Support for 3D Virtual Navigation.
VSGAMES ’12 Procedia Computer Science 283-284.
Karanam, S., Oostendorp, H. van. & Indurkhya, B. Towards a fully computational model of web-navigation.
(2011). In Modern
Approaches in Applied Intelligence. 327-337.
Karanam, S., Oostendorp, H. van. & Indurkhya.
B.
Role of content in addition to hyperlinks in user-clicking behavior. ECCE 2010,
European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics, Delft, The Netherlands.
Karanam, S., Viswanathan, J., Theertha, A., Indurkhya, B. & Oostendorp,
H. van. (2010).
Impact of placing picture icons next to hyperlinks on information retrieval tasks on the web. Cog Sci 2010, Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society.
Karanam, S., Oostendorp, H. van., Puerta Melguizo, M.C & Indurkhya,
B. (2009). Integrating graphical information into cognitive modeling of web navigation , Cog Sci 2009, 31 st
Annual Meeting of the Cognitive
Science Society.
2807-2812.
Karanam, S. & Indurkhya, B. (2009). Eye movement analysis of tilt illuions , Perception , 38, ECVP Abstract Supplement, pg 23.
Karanam, S. & Indurkhya, B. (2008). An empirical Study on the role of
Asymmetry and Balance in Aesthetics , European Conference on Visual
Perception 08 , held at University of Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.
Van Oostendorp, H., Aggarwal, S. & Karanam, S. Development of a
Cognitive Model of Web-Navigation. Current Trends in Reading
Research, TAELEC 2013, Madrid, Spain.
Karanam, S. & Indurkhya, B. (2008). Exploring Mondrian Balance:
Role of Arrangement of Rectangles and their Color-Configuration
APA Congress 08 , held at Boston, MA, USA.

2007
2006
Karanam, S. & Indurkhya, B. (2007). Towards a Computational Model of Aesthetics: A Multi Agent based approach to modeling Balance ,
Summer Interactivist Institute , American University of Paris, Paris,
France.
Karanam, S. & Indurkhya, B. (2006). Cognitive Modeling of Aesthetic
Principles Underlying Art , 2nd International Conference on Cognitive
Sciences ICCS 06 , Center for Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences,
University of Allahabad, Allahabad, India.
PATENTS
2013
2012
STUDENTS MENTORING
Ruud Meeuwsen (2008)
Floortje van Oosten (2015)
Method and system for selecting task templates. United States patent application US 20150007181 A1.
Method and system for recommending crowdsourcing platforms. United
States patent application US 20140279780 A1.
Method and system for recommending tasks to crowdworker. United
States patent application US 9152919 B2.
Crowdsourcing directory system. United States patent application US
20140188787 A1.
Creating material and conducting an experiment on ‘Interaction of textual and graphical information in locating web-page widgets’
Conducting a behavioural experiment with older-aged people on ‘The role of task difficulty and prior domain knowledge on information search behaviour of older-aged people’ and designing materials for another experiment on MISSION Project.
TECHNICAL SKILLS
Experimental Psychology
Eye Trackers
Psychology software tools
Statistical Analysis tools
Programming
Operating Systems
Others
Design and analysis of behavioral experiments.
Familiar with SR-Research, Tobii X120 and SMI Eye trackers.
DirectRT, Tobii Studio
SPSS
C, Java, Python.
HTML, CGI, CSS
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Organizer
PC Member
Workshop on Web Search and Individual Differences (IndiDiff) 2016 in conjunction with Hypertext 2016.
CHIIR 2016, Hypertext 2016, XRCI Open 2015.
Reviewer CogSci 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, EAPCogSci 2015,.
CONFERENCES / WORKSHOPS ORGANIZED
2010 Organized TechEase-10, in collaboration with UsabilityMatters.Org
(UMO), a national level workshop on usability and user interface design.
Gave a talk in Seminar on Computational Cognitive Modeling of Web-

2009
Navigation, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Co-organized this seminar with
Prof. Herre van Oostendorp, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Organized TechEase-09, in collaboration with UsabilityMatters.Org
(UMO), a first of its kind national level workshop on Usability for engineering and design students.
INVITED TALKS
2013 Xerox Innovation at Work , Department of Information and Computing
Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands. (May 6 th
2013).
Understanding dynamic performance variability across multiple crowdsourcing platforms , Department of Computer Science, UCLA, LA,
USA. (November 14 th
, 2013)
Understanding dynamic performance variability across multiple crowdsourcing platforms , Department of Computer Science, UC, Irvine,
LA, USA. (November 15 th
, 2013).
Crowd-Control: An online learning approach for optimal task scheduling , Augmented and Social Computing Group, Palo Alto
Research Centre (PARC), SFO, USA. (November 12 th
2013)
ACHIEVEMENTS / GRANTS
Crowdsourced form digitization solution.
Played a major role in the development of a technical solution for digitizing health insurance forms using crowd workers.
Cognitive Science Lab
Grants
Painting
REFERENCES
Will be provided on request.
Helped setting up a new research center at IIIT-H on Cognitive Science.
Was involved in every aspect of its growth in its early stages. Presented lab’s activities with various groups at Rediff, Amazon, Honeywell,
Rhythm and Hues, Tata Elxsi.
One of the Principal Investigators on a collaborative project with IIIT-H granted under Open Innovation Awards of Xerox Research Centre investigating cognitive aspects of task design for crowdsourcing.
EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
Table Tennis Regularly playing TT
Yoga
Violin
Practising pranayama and few yogasanas.
Underwent formal training to play violin for about 6-8 months during my under-graduation.
Was painting until my high school. Won many prizes including a district level first (Visakhapatnam) for a competition conducted by Ministry of
Surface Transport on Road Safety. I now occasionally do pencil sketches.