Abi Kuganesan is a MSc. student with the Computer Science department at the University of British Columbia. She completed her BASc. in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Through various internships at NXP Semiconductors, North (Acquired by Google) and Avidbots, Abi gained interest in the intersection between Autonomous Driving and Human Factors. Abi is passionate about bringing cognisance of social factors into the domain of artificial intelligence. She pursued research in Social Pedestrian Intent Estimation while at the University of Waterloo. This work has been presented at the iUW Human Factors Conference at the University of Toronto in 2018. Abi worked as a Deep Learning Engineer for InvisionAI in Toronto prior to joining UBC. She is also the Co-Founder of Rekammend, an organization aiming to improve the quality of life for non-verbal individuals. In her free time, Abi enjoys hiking, cycling, calligraphy, experiencing new food and cultures.
Research Interests
It is Abi’s belief that the behavioral intelligence of a human driver should also be modeled in order for autonomous vehicles to respond adequately to such scenarios. She aims to approach this problem from a Computer Vision and Machine Learning point of view using the cognitive structure of human intent formulation as a basis for heuristics. Abi’s research interests are aligned with integrating social and human factors with prediction algorithms in order to enable more humane decision making. She is also interested in accessible and inclusive design and strives to research, prototype and develop solutions that are reflective of these interests.