Profile
Riku Arakawa is a Ph.D. candidate at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is advised by Dr. Mayank Goel. His research focuses on developing AI assistants for health and well-being that can operate reliably under contextual uncertainty. By combining ubiquitous sensing, machine learning, and human-centered AI, he designs interactive systems that support everyday care activities, including procedural healthcare tasks, chronic condition management, and caregiver support. Before joining CMU, he received both his B.E. and M.S. from The University of Tokyo, Japan, where he worked with Dr. Hiroshi Saruwatari on real-time voice conversion, and Dr. Masahiko Inami on auditory intervention for behavioral change.
His work has been published at leading human-computer interaction venues, including ACM CHI, UIST, and IMWUT. He has received multiple Best Paper and Honorable Mention awards, as well as fellowships including the Funai Fellowship, Masason Fellowship, Snap Research Fellowship, and Quad Fellowship. He has also received the Ubicomp Gaetano Borriello Outstanding Student Award (2025), was named to Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 in Healthcare & Science (2024), and was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 Japan (2025).
In a nutshell, he's passionate about human-computer interaction (HCI), human-AI interaction (HAI), and after a long day, occasional human-beer interaction (HBI).
- Curriculum Vitae (updated: 2026.03)
- Google Scholar
- Research Blog (Japanese)
- Research Blog (English)