Eshwar
  • Home
  • Publications
  • Teaching
  • Lab
  • Contact

Eshwar Chandrasekharan

me.jpg
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Previously, I obtained my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech, and M.Tech + B.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Research summary:
Using a combination of computational techniques and social computing theories, my research aims to make advances on the problem of abusive behavior online with a long-term goal of making the Internet safer and more welcoming.

Here's the link to my Google Scholar and my latest CV (updated on May 5, 2020).

Recent updates:
  • August 15: I'll be teaching a course on Antisocial Computing at Illinois CS during Fall 2020.
  • May 5: I accepted a job offer and will start as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall 2020! #HYPED
  • March 3: I defended my Ph.D. dissertation on "Combatting Abusive Behavior in Online Communities Using Cross-Community Learning" at Georgia Tech.
  • Feb - March: Gave a series of talks about "Using Human-Centered AI to Combat Abusive Behavior on the Internet" at University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, University of Minnesota, UIUC and UMass Amherst.
  • ​February 17: We won a research award from Facebook Research for our project on "Measuring healthy online behavior".
  • January 23: Crossmod, our new AI-based moderation system, is deployed real-time on r/Futurology, our partner subreddit with over 14 million subscribers. Check out our website for more information.

​Bio:
Eshwar Chandrasekharan is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research builds a foundation for evaluating and improving approaches to online moderation, and developing new AI-backed sociotechnical systems. Dr. Chandrasekharan's work has appeared at high-impact conferences venues, and received considerable press coverage—e.g., The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, The Verge and MotherBoard. He recently won a Facebook research award for his project on measuring healthy online behavior. Professor Chandrasekharan has worked with large-scale Internet platforms including Twitter, Reddit and Facebook, and his research has impacted their efforts to improve online governance. For example, he developed  Crossmod, a new AI-backed moderation system that is currently deployed in an online community with over 14 million subscribers. His research led Reddit to ban many hate groups (e.g., neo-Nazis) from the platform. Steve Huffman, Reddit CEO and co-founder, also used Dr. Chandrasekharan's work as evidence in his recent testimony before Congress. Professor Chandrasekharan holds a B.Tech and M.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology.