Trisha Gite

First Year Ph.D. Student at University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Department of Human-Centered Computing and Education

University of North Carolina at Charlotte (M.S. / Ph.D.)

Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing and Education

North Carolina State University (B.S.)

Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science (Dec 2024)

Minor : Business Administration

About Me

Hello! I'm a Ph.D. student in Computing and Information Systems at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where my research focuses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), human-centered AI, and the design of technologies that improve people's everyday lives.

I am passionate about designing intelligent, user-centered systems that bridge technology and human needs. My work combines qualitative and computational research methods to understand user experiences and inform the development of accessible, impactful technologies. I enjoy collaborating across disciplines, conducting user research, designing interactive experiences, and exploring how emerging technologies can address real-world challenges.

Outside of research, I enjoy gaming, creating digital art, practicing martial arts, and staying curious about emerging technologies that have the potential to create meaningful social impact.

Research Interests: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) • Human-Centered AI • UI/UX Design • AI for Health • Accessibility • Caregiver Technologies • Digital Health • Sociotechnical Systems • Large Language Models (LLMs) • Topic Modeling • User Research

Projects

Accelerating Systematic Reviews with Large Language Models
Role: Developer & Research Assistant
This project explores the use of publicly available large language models (LLMs) to speed up the full-text screening process in systematic reviews. I'm developing an LLM-based API that validates model outputs against a human-coded dataset and building a web-based interface to make this tool accessible to researchers conducting future reviews.

Semantic Topic Modeling for Mapping Interdisciplinarity in Research
Designed and implemented a comparative framework for evaluating topic modeling approaches—LSA, LDA, transformer-based models (BERT, BERTopic), and lightweight LLMs (e.g., SmolLM, Gemini, Mistral)—to analyze interdisciplinary research themes. Used a manually labeled NSF proposal dataset and scientific publications to assess topic coherence, diversity, and granularity across models. Deliverables included a human-coded baseline, custom evaluation metrics, and an open-source Python toolkit. Explored semantic clustering, visualized topic networks, and proposed improvements to existing research discovery platforms.

Semantic Mapping and Network Analysis of Interdisciplinary Research at NC State PSI
Role: Data Analyst & Research Contributor
This project aims to understand and visualize interdisciplinary research collaborations within the Plant Sciences Department at NC State. I contribute by clustering research topics semantically and analyzing global publication data to uncover emerging trends and research strengths.

Worked on the frontend and backend development of a software that helps users place multiple orders and is managed by multiple users at one time. Worked with a group of 5 other software engineering students to build the software from scratch. Presented/deployed the software at the of the course with succesfull completion.

AI for Health
Role: Student Innovator & Data Collection Assistant  
In this project, I worked on detecting strokes using wearable sensor sleeves paired with a mobile app. The system tracks movement data in real time to provide early warnings and improve accessibility to medical intervention. The goal is to combine health tech and AI for smarter, preventative healthcare solutions.