Education

She completed her PhD in Computer Science at North Carolina State University after earning her MS in Computer Science from Clemson University. During her doctoral studies, she served as a graduate instructor and also extensively worked as a graduate teaching assistant throughout her M.S. and Ph.D. Her teaching experience includes courses in C/C++ and Introduction to Python/R with Data Science.

Her research has earned her travel grants and honorable mention at flagship conferences such as AIED/EDM and SIGCSE. Through her research commitments and collaborations, she continues to shape efforts in supporting instructors in classrooms with a focus on preservation of student data privacy. 

Research Areas

• Distributed Machine Learning/Federated Learning
• Computer Science Education
• Educational Data Mining
• Fairness and Ethics in AI
• Human-Computer Interaction

Students interested to work in these areas can directly email her to get involved! She is also active about writing grants, so collaboration invites are always welcome!

She claims herself to be a quite "non-uninteresting" person!

Outside of her professional work, Anurata enjoys hiking, traveling, and reciting poems. She is also passionate about exploring new experiences, cultures, cuisines, and ways of thinking. 

Recent Publications

[16] Toward Understanding Collaboration and Learning in LLM-Supported Pair Programming

AP Hridi, T Das

Accepted to appear in the Proceedings of ACM SIGCSE Virtual 2026

[15] Autonomy, Safety, and Social Design: Towards Designing Effective and Inclusive Technologies for Autistic Young Adults

A Manjunath, A Wolf, H Aggabao, B Deyak, N Azmach, AP Hridi and M Sharmin 

Accepted to be published in IEEE COMPSAC 2026 proceedings

[14] Federated Code-Aware Knowledge Tracing for Privacy-Preserving Student Performance Forecasting [Awarded honorable mention!]

AP Hridi, M Hoq, S Hosseinalipour, R Sahay, B Akram

Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, 2026

DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21039681  

[13] Discrepancies between Simulated and Real-World Car-Following Behavior of Adaptive Cruise Control Vehicles in Mixed Traffic

T Das, AP Hridi, J Meng, G List 

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 0(0)

DOI: doi.org/10.1177/03611981261436640

[12] When GenAI Arrived, Forum Participation Fell: Reshaping Help-Seeking in Introductory Computing Courses

M Zahn, AP Hridi, L Battestilli, S Heckman

Accepted to appear in 2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

[11] Knowledge Component-Driven Alignment of CS1 Textbooks and Exercises

S Smith, AB Lekshmi-Narayanan, AP Hridi, R Sampaio de Alencar, B Akram, A Hellas, J Leinonen, P Brusilovsky, N Norouzi

Proceedings of the 57th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2. 2026

Link: www.researchgate.net/publication/400870573_Knowledge_Component-Driven_Alignment_of_CS1_Textbooks_and_Exercises 

[10] A Survey of LLM-Based Applications in Programming Education: Balancing Automation and Human Oversight

G Pitts*, AP Hridi*, AB Lekshmi-Narayanan [*both authors contributed equally]

Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Bridging Human--Computer Interaction and Natural Language Processing at EMNLP, 2025

DOI: doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.hcinlp-1.21 

[9] Example Explorers and Persistent Finishers: Exploring Student Practice Behaviors in a Python Practice System

A Poh, AP Hridi, J Barria-Pineda, P Brusilovsky, B Akram

Proceedings of 9th Educational Data Mining in Computer Science Education (CSEDM) Workshop at EDM 2025

Link: ceur-ws.org/Vol-4019/paper_05.pdf 

[8] Privacy-Preserving Distributed Link Predictions Among Peers in Online Classrooms Using Federated Learning

AP Hridi, M Hoq, Z Gao, C Lynch, R Sahay, S Hosseinalipour, B Akram

Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, 2025

DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15870179 

[7] Are Fair Machine Learning Models More Useful?

AP Hridi, B Watson

International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 2024

DOI: doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76827-9_3 

[6] Revolutionizing AI-assisted Education with Federated Learning: A Pathway to Distributed, Privacy-preserving, and Debiased Learning Ecosystems

AP Hridi, R Sahay, S Hosseinalipour, B Akram

Proceedings of the AAAI Symposium Series 3 (1), 2024

DOI: doi.org/10.1609/aaaiss.v3i1.31217 

[5] Exhibiting Evidence in Remote Courtrooms: Design and Usability Study

AP Hridi, KL Khan, AR Jadhav, H Saedi, S Nanda, L Serrao, B Watson

Companion Publication of the 2022 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 2022

DOI: doi.org/10.1145/3500868.3559474 

[4] Leveling up teamwork in esports: Understanding team cognition in a dynamic virtual environment

G Musick, R Zhang, NJ McNeese, G Freeman, AP Hridi

Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction 5 (CSCW1), 2021

DOI: doi.org/10.1145/3449123 

[3] Understanding the Education of Children with Autism in Bangladesh: Parents' Perspective

AP Hridi*, A Saha*, A Sinha, IA Abeer, N Ahmed, S Ahmed  [*both authors contributed equally]

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-computer Interaction 5 (CSCW1), 2021

DOI: doi.org/10.1145/3449134 

[2] Understanding the educational landscape of children with autism in Bangladesh

AP Hridi*, S Ahmed*, IA Abeer, A Saha, A Sinha, MS Hossain, N Ahmed, M Sharmin  [*both authors contributed equally]

International Conference on Information, Springer International Publishing, 2020

DOI: doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_35 

[1] Faster Evacuation After Disaster: Finding Alternative Routes Using Probable Human Behavior

AP Hridi, D Das, MM Anjum, T Das 

Proceedings of the 7th Annual Symposium on Computing for Development, 2016

DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1145/3001913.3006632