Designing, building, and
evaluating technologies for underserved communities.
I am a Ph.D. student in the School of Computing and Information Science at Cornell Tech, where I am co-advised by Dr. Nicola Dell and Dr. Aditya Vashistha, with additional mentorship from Dr. Deborah Estrin.
My research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI), responsible artificial intelligence (R/AI), and digital health equity. I design, build, and evaluate sociotechnical systems that enable positive social transformation for underserved communities. Specifically, my work centers on computing in high-stakes healthcare settings, with a particular focus on developing novel AI and data-driven systems to support formal and informal caregivers as well as the older adults they care for.
Before joining Cornell, I earned an M.S. in Computer Science from New York University where I was a graduate research fellow (and currently visiting scholar) at the Center for Responsible AI, under the supervision of Dr. Julia Stoyanovich. Prior to academia, I worked as a software engineer for various New York City technology startups. Some of my most recent work includes developing open-source software to create robots for biologists and building software to help educators become entrepreneurs.
Outside of academic activities, I am an avid Muay Thai practitioner, I enjoy reading, and love to cook — plus I have been known to eat.
Digital Health Equity in Home Healthcare Work
I am part of a multidisciplinary research team at Cornell University working on the Initiative on Home Care Work. Our goal is to elevate the value of home care workers while improving their working conditions and patient outcomes.
My current research focuses on the responsible design, development, and deployment of conversational AI agents to support care coordination between home care workers and family caregivers.
Ian René Solano-Kamaiko, Ariel C. Avgar, Madeline Sterling, Aditya Vashistha, Nicola Dell. Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26).
Ian René Solano-Kamaiko, Michael Dicinigaitis, Melissa Tan, Irene Yang, Kexin Cheng, Ronica Peramsetty, Michelle Shum, Yanira Escamilla, Jennifer Bayly, Meghan Reading Turchioe, Ariel Avgar, Aditya Vashistha, Nicola Dell, Madeline R. Sterling. Journal of Medical Internet Research (2026).