Ritika Gairola is a Ph.D. student at the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering. She works as a research assistant in the UXP2 Lab, where her research focuses on technology-related harms as systemic issues that emerge across users’ interactions with digital systems.

Her work examines how design choices contribute to harms—ranging from subtle manipulation to psychological distress—and how policy mechanisms can address them. She seeks to bridge the gap between human-computer interaction (HCI) and public policy by investigating how harm is constructed, perceived, and regulated, and how scholars from both fields can collaborate to develop ethical technologies and responsive regulation. She was also a research intern at the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy in Bochum, Germany, where she worked with the Tech Harm Prevention Group. Her broader research interests lie at the intersection of HCI, law and ethics, and public policy. Ritika holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) with a specialization in Intellectual Property from the Franklin Pierce School of Law, University of New Hampshire. She is a licensed attorney in India and previously served as an IP consultant to the Indian Government for two years. Prior to starting her Ph.D., she worked with the International Trademark Association in New York.