I work on human-centered AI for software engineering: understanding, evaluating, and building intelligent systems that reshape how people create software. Earlier, my research spanned AI for education, accessible communication, vision-language models, and the environmental costs of AI.
Publications
- AI IDEs or Autonomous Agents? Measuring the Impact of Coding Agents on Software DevelopmentAgarwal, S., He, H., & Vasilescu, B.Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 23rd International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR 2026) · project page ↗★ Distinguished Paper Award · Best Presentation Award
- Speed at the Cost of Quality: How Cursor AI Increases Short-Term Velocity and Long-Term Complexity in Open-Source ProjectsHe, H., Miller, C., Agarwal, S., Kästner, C., & Vasilescu, B.Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 23rd International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR 2026) · project page ↗★ Distinguished Paper Award
- 3100 Opinions on Code Review in an AI World: Building Causal Theory from Practitioner DiscourseAgarwal, S., Miller, C., Kästner, C., & Vasilescu, B.Manuscript under review
- Comparing Developer and LLM Biases in Code EvaluationMittal, A., Shar, R., Wu, Z., Agarwal, S., Wu, T., Donahue, C., Talwalkar, A., Chi, W., & Chen, V.Conference on Language Modeling (COLM 2026) · Deep Learning for Code (DL4C) Workshop @ ICML 2026
- Practice Less, Explain More: LLM-Supported Self-Explanation Improves Explanation Quality on Transfer Problems in CalculusChen, E., Tang, X., Zhao, Y., Chen, M., Elmir, M., McLaughlin, E., Yuan, M., Wang, Y., Agarwal, S., Cochrane, J., Lin, J., Wu, T., & Koedinger, K.Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED 2026)
- AI Writes Faster Than Humans Can Review: A Longitudinal Study of an Enterprise 2x MandateHe, H., Agarwal, S., Denisov-Blanch, Y., Azaletskiy, P., Koyejo, S., & Vasilescu, B.Manuscript under review
- AI-Enabled Grading with Near-Domain Data for Scaling Feedback with Human-Level AccuracyAgarwal, S., Moghimi, A., & Haudek, K. C.Manuscript under review
- The Hidden AI Race: Tracking Environmental Costs of InnovationAgarwal, S., & Chakraborti, M.Manuscript under review
- "Oh, so that's what went wrong!": Targeted Feedback through Concept and Category Aware Prompting in ClassroomsAgarwal, S., & Moghimi, A.Manuscript under review
- Towards Shorter and More Effective Feedback Cycles in Educational SettingsAgarwal, S.Thesis, University Honors Program, UC Davis (2025)
- X-VL: Injecting External Knowledge into Vision-Language Models for Better AnsweringAgarwal, S., Gohil, A., & Modi, S.International Journal of Computer Applications, 186(61), 51–58 (2025)
- "Allot?" is "A Lot!" Towards Developing More Generalized Speech Recognition System for Accessible CommunicationBandodkar, G.*, Agarwal, S.*, Sughosh A.K.*, Singh, S.*, & Choi, T. (*Equal Contribution)Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 38(21), 23327–23334 (2024)
Presentations
- AI-powered Student Feedback Generation Using Transformer ModelsAgarwal, S., & Moghimi, A.34th Annual Undergraduate Research Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference (2023) · Oral Presentation
- Unveiling Unasked Questions: Harnessing Survey Responses to Unleash Hidden KnowledgeAgarwal, S., & Frey, S.8th Annual Spring Research Symposium, ASPIRE Undergraduate Research Program (2023) · Oral Presentation
- Enhancing Formative Assessment Through Automated Short Answer GradingAgarwal, S., & Moghimi, A.35th Annual Undergraduate Research Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference (2024) · Oral Presentation
- Student Assessment in the Era of AI and ChatGPTMoghimi, A., & Agarwal, S.AI in Agriculture Conference (session 11: Innovations in Academic to Meet the Needs and Demands of AI), Orlando, Florida (2024) · Oral Presentation