Ph.D. Researcher — accessible, trustworthy, and privacy-aware GenAI
I am second-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) working in APeX Lab led by Dr. Taslima Akter. Prior to starting my Ph.D. at UTSA, I worked three years as a Full-Stack developer at Kona Software Lab Ltd. My research asks a simple question with a hard answer: how does trust actually form — and break — when blind and low vision users rely on generative AI for everyday tasks?
My research centers on making generative AI genuinely usable for blind and low-vision (BLV) people — not just technically available, but accessible, trustworthy, and privacy-aware in everyday interaction. Generative AI is increasingly woven into how people write, search, navigate, and get things done, yet these tools are rarely designed with BLV users in mind. I study how BLV people actually experience these systems: where interactions break down with assistive technology, what makes a response feel dependable or doubtful, and how people weigh the convenience of AI assistance against control over their personal information.
Building on that understanding, I work on translating BLV users' experiences and needs into concrete interaction design guidance — so that the next generation of generative and agentic AI tools is built with accessibility, trust, and privacy as foundations rather than afterthoughts. This work sits at the intersection of human-computer interaction, accessibility, and applied machine learning, combining qualitative methods with human-centered evaluation of AI systems.
Abu Noman Md Sakib, Protik Dey, Zijie Zhang, Taslima Akter, Explainable AI for Blind and Low-Vision Users: Navigating Trust, Modality, and Interpretability in the Agentic Era. Proceedings of the CHI 2026 Workshop on Human-Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI), Apr 2026.
Syed Zami-Ul-Haque Navid, Protik Dey, Shamiul Hasan, and Muhammad Masroor Ali, Static Detection of Malicious Code in Programs Using Semantic Techniques. 11th International Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (ICECE), 2020.
Jan 2026 – Present · Texas, USA
Leading research projects on accessible, trustworthy, and privacy-aware generative AI for blind and low-vision users. Design and conduct user studies with BLV participants, and build research prototypes to evaluate accessible AI interactions — from study design and interviews through qualitative analysis and publication. Mentor undergraduate students on research methods and academic writing.
Python · Prototyping · User studies · Thematic analysis
Aug 2024 – Dec 2025 · Texas, USA
Teaching assistant for undergraduate courses including Operating Systems and Systems Programming. Graded assignments, projects, and exams, and supported students through office hours on OS concepts and low-level C programming.
Operating Systems · Systems Programming · C · Unix/Linux
Jan 2023 – Jul 2024 · Dhaka, Bangladesh
Worked in the Integrated Platform team building global payment solutions. Designed and implemented validation and authorization for financial transactions including recharge and payment flows.
Spring Boot · Redis · RabbitMQ · MariaDB
Aug 2021 – Dec 2022 · Dhaka, Bangladesh
Full-stack developer on the Digital Financial System team, delivering financial transaction solutions for Nagad, Bangladesh's fastest-growing mobile financial system — including tokenized payments, KYC, and bank/card transfers. Also helped stand up the back-office portal for the KONAPLATE project using Angular.
Spring Boot · Angular · Redis · RabbitMQ · Strapi · Oracle
Aug 2024 – Present · Texas, USA
Feb 2016 – Mar 2021 · Dhaka, Bangladesh
Semi-structured interviews, Thematic analysis, User studies, Usability testing, Interactive prototyping, Accessible & inclusive design
C, C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Bash
NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, Matplotlib
Spring Boot, Django, Angular, Strapi, JavaFX, Redis, RabbitMQ, Hibernate
Oracle, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite
Git