I'm Charan Pushpanathan Prabavathi; In-short Charan; 
I'm an incoming Ph.D. student in Information Sciences at the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I'm fortunate to be advised by Dr. Michael Twidale. My research will focus on Human-Computer Interaction, including:
- Learning to Use: learning theories and training users
- Novel interfaces with minimal information
- Collaborative environments
- Making intelligence in the sciences of artificial
Graduated from Penn State.
I was a graduate student at Penn State University's College of Information Sciences and Technology, where I pursued a Master of Science in Informatics with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction. I was a graduate researcher in the Collaboration Innovation Lab, I was fortunate to study under Dr. John M. Carroll as his advisee. His insights left a lasting imprint on how I conceived of HCI and the philosophical currents that flowed beneath technological design. My research explored human-computer interaction, cooperative activity, synergies, learning to use, and interface design.
At Penn State, I witnessed with some pretty sharp minds. Jack Carroll (aka John M. Carroll; my advisor), Ritter, Zhang, Huang I got to see how these folks actually work, not just read their papers.
I graduated from Kumaraguru College of Technology with a Bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering.
Previously, I held roles involving user testing, research, and interface design at HDFC Bank, Freecharge (backed by Axis Bank), and was a founding member/designer at an angel-backed capital markets startup (now closed).
I'm currently living in State College, PA (thin crust life), and will soon be moving to Champaign, IL, ready for that deep dish dive.