About Me

I am a 4th-year Ph.D. candidate in the School of Computing Science at Simon Fraser University and an incoming Research Intern at Microsoft Research FATE, New York.

I work on Human-AI Interaction, Transparency and Control and Software Help-Seeking to design and develop LLM-based assistants, copilots for software help-seeking and AR/mixed reality applications, which were specifically designed to foster effective human-agent collaboration and help users build accurate mental models when interacting with these novel paradigms.

My research has been published as a full paper in top-tier HCI and AI conferences: CHI 2025, IUI 2024, UBICOMP 2024, VL/HCC 2021. In my PhD research, I was fortunate to collaborate with Meta Reality Labs, Stanford University, and ETH Zurich.

I enjoy working on the design space (iterative design and prototyping, user-centered design approach), and applying LLM models to cater to software user needs. Before coming to SFU, I interned in product development in Atlanta, USA, and a two-month technical mentorship program at IIT Hyderabad.

News

May 2025: Started Research Intern at Microsoft Research NYC Lab (FATE) mentored by Jenn Wortman Vaughan and Vera Liao
May 2025: Presented at ACM CHI Yokohama Japan

Selected Publications

Do It For Me vs. Do It With Me: Investigating User Perceptions of Different Levels of Automation in Copilots for Feature-Rich Software
Anjali Khurana, Xiaotian Su, April Y. Wang, Parmit K Chilana
CHI 2025 [25.1% acceptance rate] ● PAPER

Why and When LLM-Based Assistants Can Go Wrong: Investigating the Effectiveness of Prompt-Based Interactions for Software Help-Seeking
Anjali Khurana, Hari Subramonyam, Parmit K Chilana
IUI 2024 [24% acceptance rate] ● PAPER

Understanding Novice Users' Mental Models of Gesture Discoverability and Designing Effective Onboarding
Anjali Khurana, Parmit K Chilana
UbiComp Companion '24 ● PAPER

"Do I Just Tap My Headset?": How Novice Users Discover Gestural Interactions with Consumer Augmented Reality Applications
Anjali Khurana, Michael Glueck, Parmit K Chilana
IMWUT 2023 ● PAPER

ChatrEx: Designing Explainable Chatbot Interfaces for Enhancing Usefulness, Transparency, and Trust
Anjali Khurana, Parsa Alamzadeh, Parmit Chilana
VL/HCC 2021 [30% acceptance rate] ● PAPER

* Also presented at CS Research Day (SFU 2021), CHI Workshop on Human-Centered Perspectives in XAI (2022), and DFP Design Showcase (UBC 2023)

Video Moment Localization using Object Evidence and Reverse Captioning
Madhawa Vidanapathirana, Supriya Pandhre, Sonia Raychaudhuri,, Anjali Khurana
arXiv preprint 2020 ● PAPER

Workshop Papers & Presentations

Designing Semi-Automated Copilots: Balancing User Control and Guidance for Effective Human-Agent Collaboration
Anjali Khurana, Parmit Chilana
CHI 2025 Workshop on Tools for Thought, Yokohama, Japan

Summary of the Workshop on Interactions for Supporting Explanations and Promoting Comprehension
Mona Rezaie, Stephanie Purdue, Anjali Khurana, Parmit K Chilana, Melanie Tory, Sheelagh Carpendale
ISS Companion '24 ● PAPER

ChatrEx: Designing Explainable Chatbot Interfaces for Enhancing Usefulness, Transparency, and Trust
Anjali Khurana, Parsa Harjandi, Parmit Chilana
Designing for People (DFP) Design Showcase, University of British Columbia (2023)

Designing Explainable Chatbot Interfaces: Enhancing Usefulness, Transparency, and Trust
Anjali Khurana, Parmit Chilana
CHI 2022 Workshop on Human-Centered Perspectives in Explainable AI

ChatrEx: Designing Explainable Chatbot Interfaces for Enhancing Usefulness, Transparency, and Trust
Anjali Khurana, Parsa Harjandi, Parmit Chilana
CS Research Day, Simon Fraser University (2021)

For the full list, see Google Scholar.

Projects

UXEva: Automated UI evaluation using LLM agents to identify design issues.
ChatrSQL: Text-to-SQL system for novices via LLM fine-tuning on WikiSQL.
Robust QA System: Domain-robust question answering with hyperparameter tuning.
USCrimeVIS: D3.js visualization of U.S. crime data over time.
Siri Study: Usability evaluation of voice assistants for scheduling tasks.

Press

Featured by SFU Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies: Graduate Researcher Profile.

Awards & Honors

Nominee, Google PhD Fellowship – SFU (2024)
Aarohan Platinum Award – Infosys Foundation (2019)
Multiple SFU Graduate Fellowships & Scholarships (2019–2024)

Contact

Email: anjali_khurana@sfu.ca

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anjali-khurana-rai-418710124/