Bhavana Bheem
bbheem@mit.edu
I am a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab, advised by Karrie Karahalios in the Social Algorithms group. My research sits at the intersection of algorithmic justice, public-sector AI policy, and human-computer interaction, focusing on:
- Leveraging computational methods and justice-centered frameworks to analyze bias and discrimination in sociotechnical systems.
- Evaluating and advocating for policy and governance structures as critical tools to ensure AI systems uphold digital, human, and civil rights.
My work is driven by the goal of empowering communities and stakeholders to audit, contest, influence, and resist the deployment of AI technologies.
Before MIT, I earned an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics and a B.A. in Religious Studies from Harvey Mudd College.
news
| Sep 26, 2026 | Awarded Second Place in the Student Paper Competition at TPRC 2026 |
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| Aug 01, 2026 | Excited to share that our paper “AI Localism - Counter Imaginaries from City AI Governance” was accepted to AIES 2026! |
| Aug 01, 2025 | Interned on the Security and Surveillance & Free Expression Projects at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington D.C. Check out my blog posts! |
| Mar 26, 2025 | Presented a poster at ACM CS & Law Conference in Munich, Germany |
| Sep 14, 2024 | Presented a poster at Caltech’s “Navigating the New Frontier: The Political and Economic Implications of AI” conference. |
selected publications
Posters
- September 2026 – Community-Centered AI Governance (TPRC Graduate Student Workshop Disseration Research)
- March 2025 – Reevaluating the Platform Neutrality Assumption of Section 230: An Agent-Based Model Approach (ACM Symposium on Computer Science and Law, Munich, Germany)
- September 2024 – Technology as Both a Threat and a Promise for Platform Regulation: Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions for Online Speech on Social Media Platforms (Navigating the New Frontier: The Political and Economic Implications of AI, Caltech)
Public Scholarship
- September 2026 – Community Data Center Workshop Radio Appearance, Catch the Beat from Market Street
- June 2025 – New Orleans’ Dragnet Facial Recognition Program Threatens Innocent People, Center for Democracy & Technology
- October 2025 – Echoes of Authoritarianism: A Comparative Study of US Social Media Monitoring for Immigration with Global Parallels, Center for Democracy & Technology