Student Spotlight: Deepak Varuvel Dennison

March 23, 2026

Deepak Varuvel Dennison is a doctoral student in information science from Kalpakkam, Tamilnadu, India. He earned his previous degrees at Stanford University and Anna University and now studies AI-based education technologies under the guidance of Rene Kizilcec and Aditya Vashistha at Cornell University.

What is your area of research and why is it important?

My research focuses on developing AI-based educational technologies for learners who do not speak English as their primary language. I explore how we can improve learning by leveraging students’ native languages, examine the opportunities and limitations of current AI technologies, and design ways to make these tools more effective and inclusive.

This work is important because non-English speakers make up the majority of the world’s population. For example, only about 20% of the global population speaks English, yet many educational technologies are designed primarily for English users. This creates a significant gap in access to high-quality learning tools. By making AI-driven education more accessible across languages, my research aims to help bridge this gap and support more equitable learning opportunities worldwide.

What are the larger implications of this research?

My research is quite applied, and I get to work on projects that are directly used by educators and students. In the first project of my Ph.D., I worked on evaluating an AI-based lesson planning tool for teachers in India. The tool is currently used by over 8,000 teachers and supports more than 200,000 students. Our research helped identify ways to improve the tool, and some of those insights were incorporated into its design. Currently, I am working on a project called ConvoEd, which explores how conversational AI can support bilingual learning in both students’ native languages and English. As part of this work, I am collaborating with a nonprofit organization in India to help implement an AI literacy program for college students using this platform.

More broadly, I see this research as a contribution toward making educational technology more inclusive. Many AI-based tools are still designed primarily with English-speaking users in mind, which can limit their usefulness for a large part of the world. By thinking about language more carefully in the design of these systems, I hope this work can support more equitable access to learning. Since education plays such an important role in shaping opportunities, even incremental improvements in access and quality can have meaningful long-term effects.

What inspired you to choose this field of study?

I worked in a rural school in India for four years, which gave me firsthand experience of the challenges faced by teachers and students in such settings. In fact, I also did my schooling in a similar environment, so I have seen this from both sides, as a student and as an educator. Even though I studied in English-medium institutions, I was not comfortable speaking English until I started working in my 20s. Because of this, I understand the challenges students face and how language can sometimes become a barrier to building strong conceptual foundations and securing opportunities.

At the same time, I also recognize the immense opportunities that come from students’ familiarity with their native languages. Thinking about how these strengths can be better supported, and how technology can play a role in that, is what drew me to this field and continues to motivate my work.

You recently had commentary posted in the Guardian, “What AI doesn’t know: we could be creating a global ‘knowledge collapse.’” What do you hope readers take away from this?

AI is definitely one of the most revolutionary technologies of our time. No doubt about that. But the hype around it has also created an illusion that it knows everything and captures the world’s knowledge, which can be detrimental to our collective knowledge futures. In the essay, I talk about the idea of a possible “knowledge collapse,” where the range of knowledge we engage with starts to narrow as more people rely on AI systems as their primary way of accessing information. There is so much valuable knowledge in the world that resides with people but is not always recognized or legitimized because of existing power hierarchies. AI often ends up reflecting those same gaps. For example, much of the data used to train these systems is disproportionately in English, even though only a small fraction of the world speaks it.

Writing this essay was, in many ways, an exercise in intellectual humility for me. It was a way to remind myself, and hopefully others, to look beyond what exists within digital and AI systems, and to engage with other forms of knowledge with curiosity. I also hope it encourages people to be a bit more mindful of what might be missing when we rely too heavily on these systems.

What are your hobbies or interests outside of your research or scholarship?

I enjoy experimenting with different kinds of sourdough breads with my housemates. Recently, I also started learning music, which has been a challenging yet refreshing change from my research work. I also love being outdoors in Ithaca. I think it’s a lovely place to run and spend time in nature.

Why did you choose Cornell to pursue your degree?

I chose Cornell mainly because of my advisors, Rene Kizilcec and Aditya Vashistha, who are both experts in their respective fields. The interdisciplinary nature of my Ph.D. program allows me to learn from their strengths while pursuing my own research interests. Rene supports me in the learning sciences aspects of my work, while Aditya guides me in thinking about culturally aligned technologies for populations in the global majority. Having mentorship from both perspectives has been incredibly valuable. Overall, I really appreciate that my program brings together ideas from computer science and the social sciences. Being part of conversations that sit at this intersection has been super rewarding.