Iman Mohammadi

Iman Mohammadi

PhD Student in Computer Science at UC Irvine

I am a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine, advised by Prof. Habiba Farrukh at the SPECT Lab. My research focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, Social Computing & VR, and Interactive Systems & Safety.

About

My work explores how people interact with emerging computing platforms and how we can design safer, more equitable digital experiences. I am particularly interested in understanding safety and moderation mechanisms in social VR platforms, privacy perceptions in social media, and the design of decentralized and collaborative systems.

Before joining UC Irvine, I completed my Bachelor's in Computer Engineering at Sharif University of Technology. I have had the privilege of collaborating with research labs at Duke University, the University of Salerno, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Tehran Institute for Advanced Studies. My work has been published at top HCI venues including ACM CHI and ACM CSCW.

Research Interests

Updates

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Selected Publications

  1. The Art of Gift-Giving with Limited Preference Data: How Fashion Recommender Systems Can Help
    S. Alipour, S. Elahimanesh, A. Ghayouri Sales, Iman Mohammadi, P. Morassafar, S. P. Neshaei
    ACM CHI (Late-Breaking Work), May 2024
    [Paper] [GitHub]
  2. User Voices, Platform Choices: Social Media Policy Puzzle with Decentralization Salt
    S. Elahimanesh, Iman Mohammadi, M. Mosayyebi, S. Zahedi Movahed, H. Hasani, M. Rohban
    ACM CHI (Late-Breaking Work), May 2024
    [Paper] [GitHub]
  3. Improving Grading Fairness and Transparency with Decentralized Collaborative Peer Assessment
    S. Alipour, S. Elahimanesh, S. Jahanzad, Iman Mohammadi, P. Morassafar, S. P. Neshaei
    ACM CSCW, November 2024
    [Paper] [GitHub]
  4. LLMs in HCI Data Work: Bridging the Gap Between Information Retrieval and Responsible Research Practices
    N. Taghizadeh Serajeh, Iman Mohammadi, V. Fuccella, M. De Rosa
    CHI 2024 Workshop on LLMs as Research Tools, May 2024
    [Paper]

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Selected Projects

Decentralized Social Media Platform

Decentralized Social Media Platform

A platform focusing on user-driven policy-making, incorporating crowd-sourcing methods and a Transformer-based model to adapt to users' preferred policies.

Decentralization Transformers Django
[GitHub] [Demo]
AI-Powered Fashion Recommender

AI-Powered Fashion Recommender

A fashion recommendation system for gift selection with limited preference data, published at ACM CHI 2024 as a Late-Breaking Work.

Recommender Systems Machine Learning HCI
[GitHub] [Demo]

View all projects →

Experience

Aug 2025 - Present

Graduate Student Researcher

University of California, Irvine - SPECT Lab

Irvine, CA

  • Conducting mixed-method studies on platform-level protective mechanisms in social VR, including harassment and surveillance mitigation.
  • Performing cognitive walkthroughs of security features on VRChat, Horizon Worlds, and Rec Room.
  • Analyzing 15.8 million Reddit posts to characterize user discourse on VR moderation and safety tools.
May 2024 - Dec 2024

Research Assistant

Sharif University of Technology

Tehran, Iran

  • Developed a decentralized social media platform focusing on user-driven policy-making (Supervisor: Dr. Mohammad Hossein Rohban).
  • Implemented a Transformer-based model to adapt to user policy preferences.
Jun 2023 - May 2024

Research Assistant

University of Salerno (UNISA)

Fisciano, Italy (Remote)

  • Developed information retrieval methods from academic documents using Large Language Models (Supervisor: Prof. Vittorio Fuccella).
  • Created a customized dataset for model evaluation.
  • Co-authored a paper accepted at CHI 2024 Workshop on LLMs as Research Tools.
May 2023 - Dec 2023

Research Assistant

Sharif University of Technology

Tehran, Iran

  • Researched mobility-aware task offloading in vehicular fog computing (Supervisor: Dr. Mohsen Ansari).
  • Created an innovative approach emphasizing migration avoidance to ensure seamless service delivery.
Jan 2023 - Nov 2023

Research Intern

Chinese University of Hong Kong - CURE Lab

Hong Kong

  • Researched LLM robustness using one-shot learning methods (Supervisor: Prof. Qiang Xu).
  • Developed a novel approach using weighted averaging of outputs from multiple LLMs trained on distinct subsets.
  • Executed comprehensive testing and implementation of the experimental framework.
Sep 2022 - Sep 2023

Research Assistant

Tehran Institute for Advanced Studies (TeIAS)

Tehran, Iran

  • Contributed to HCI education and Computer Vision papers for CHI 2024 and CSCW 2024 (Supervisor: Dr. Sharareh Alipour).
  • Developed an AI-powered fashion recommendation system for gift selection.
  • Implemented a blockchain-based education website using Django, React, and Docker.

Education

2025 - 2030 (Expected)

Ph.D. in Computer Science

University of California, Irvine

Irvine, California | Advisor: Prof. Habiba Farrukh

2020 - 2025

B.Sc. in Computer Engineering

Sharif University of Technology

Tehran, Iran

Honors & Awards