arjun's cv

i work in ambiguous environments, helping people realise (give form to) just intentions. in the past, i have operated as a researcher, product-manager, artist and engineer; while being primarily hired as a designer. currently, i'm a graduate student at the interactive-telecommunications-program at new-york-university, on a near-full scholarship.


jobs:

2025
4 mos.

design-lab mentor, at new york university

helped nyu-students with design-inputs for their projects — process, or otherwise; as part of the design-lab at itp. resigned to become a graduate-assistant instead.

2024 - 2025,
8 mos.

design consultant, at vunet systems

worked 3 days / week, as part of a small product-design team, for an observability platform that financial institutions use to identify, diagnose, and resolve errors across their distributed components. i was brought in to work on ambiguous asks; did so with curiosity & rigour; and:

  • synthesised siloed work done over the past 3 years by different engineering & product teams, to propose a new system for people to efficiently consume alerts — which makes up 1/4th of the product's job. did design-research; made design, engineering, and product recommendations; led validation studies; and worked with engineers to plan for deployment.
  • proposed a contextually-aware search-bar — deployable across the platform — to help people find specific items quicker, and write complex queries without previous knowledge of the query language. also presented a javascript-prototype to demonstrate technical feasibility and digital tactility.
  • proposed a wyswig-editor to configure different kinds of alerts, which is a fundamentally new approach in the industry.
  • spotted platform-wide copy inconsistencies, and proposed a system for writing action-oriented descriptions across the platform, to help people better understand what different modules (and sub-modules) do.
  • nudged a platform-wide change from card-based-layouts to list-based-layouts, by demonstrating how taxing it is for the eye to scan for an item in both layouts, using a self-programmed webcam-based eyetracking tool.
  • reimagined what dashboards on the platform could look like, and nudged front-end teams to move towards independent ui-elements (and away from frameworks), by proposing a customised landing-dashboard for cxos, it-heads and reliability-engineers.
  • resigned to pursue graduate education.

2024,
3 mos.

senior lead (products) at treemouse

moved to another behaviour-design consultancy — chasing depth & impact at scale — and:

  • led design research for digital-green, identifying barriers against the adoption of their farmer-facing chatbot in jharkhand.
  • designed a proof-of-concept for a conversational-interface that is to be deployed in areas with high substance-abuse rates.
  • ran the inaugral design track for the code-for-gov-tech program, helping contributors from around the country to design more usable digital-public-goods.
  • resigned to grow my own practice.

2022 - 2024,
1yr. 11 mos.

design researcher, at tinkerlabs

worked at a behaviour-design consultancy, with a desire to bring change into the world, and:

  • led design-research, ideation, prototyping & testing for private investors, to help them design a new chain of k-12 schools that aimed to revolutionise education in the country.
  • conducted primary research & led conversation-design for the just-ask chatbot, launched by unfpa, enabling 25,000+ adolescents in rural madhya-pradesh to get accurate social & sexual health information.
  • led ethnographic-research for udhyam-foundation, identifying enables & barriers for nano-entrepreneurs to achieve business growth.
  • led design-research & a ux-redesign for nayi-disha, enabling caregivers for p.w.d. to swiftly access appropriate resources.
  • led an appreciative-enquiry for vipla-foundation, identifying transformative practices at play for a training program that upskilled women from marginalised communities.
  • helped redesign resources developed by international-justice-mission, enabling different stakeholders to use them more effectively.
  • designed, tested, and helped re-design an intervention for project-concern-international, aimed at increasing contraceptive usage for women in rural-bihar with migrant husbands.
  • facilitated 15+ behaviour-design workshops for organisations & higher education institutes in india, such as iim and mica.
  • resigned in pursuit of depth, impact at scale, and to move out of bombay.

2022,
7 mos.

xperimenter, at science gallery bengaluru

helped develop transdisciplinary public-engagement programmes for young adults to interface with the sciences, as part of the four-person xperimenters cohort, and:

  • programmed in between life & death — a web-game for young adults prompting them to question human needs.
  • led graphic design for earth 2052 — a speculative climate-vision workshop, presented at the 2022 science gallery youth symposium.
  • conducted various public engagement activities with college-students, to help them interface with the gallery.

2021,
5 mos.

product design intern, at canonic

worked as a summer intern at a low-code backend development platform, helping them come out of beta, and:

  • redesigned their entire onboarding experience, increasing completion rates by 22%.
  • led design-research and testing for various product features.
  • proposed a keyboard-first prototype for the entire platform, and designed micro-animations to make the platform feel nicer.

2020,
2 mos.

design intern, at whitenoise design

worked virtually as a summer-intern in a design studio, and:

  • contributed to identity, graphic and interface design projects.
  • proposed and designed whitenoise bridge: an internal project-management tool to help employees better manage their work in the studio.

2020,
2 mos.

identity designer, at farmtheory

worked virtually with a startup in bengaluru that wanted to reduce food-waste by matching local farmers with businesses that don't mind purchasing 'poor-looking' vegetables, and:

  • proposed a dynamic identity system.
  • developed marketing strategies & advertising tactics.
  • helped them design the interface of their ordering application.

teaching:

2026 - now

graduate assistant, at new york university

helping jesse simpson run the physical-computing class at the interactive-media-arts program, by running workshops and offering in-class-lab-support & office-hours.

2026

talk: why writing is your responsibility as a student of design, at purdue university

Made students feel comfortable with the idea of giving up control to variables to make their storytelling dynamic, reactive and/or interactive.

2022 - 2025,
3 yrs.

faculty & mentor, at and academy

taught postgraduate-diploma-students at a remote design school that wishes to make design-education accessible, and:

  • taught & evolved think lab — an experiential learning module, originally developed by prachi mittal, to foster the creative & critical thinking potential for new design students — to graphic-design students.
  • mentored ux-ui-postgraduate-diploma-students on their capstone projects.
  • ran a guided 5-week-long preparatory project to help students realise an end-to-end-digital solution for a local business vendor, as a precursor to their independent projects later.

2024

workshop: giving up control, at o.p. jindal university

Made students feel comfortable with the idea of giving up control to variables to make their storytelling dynamic, reactive and/or interactive.

2024

talk: in between life & death, at cc santè creative-coding community conference

Broke down the process used to develop In Between Life & Death — a web-game that prompts young adults to question human needs.

2024

talk: what to do when adobe fails you, at s.p.a. bhopal

introduced graphic-design students, virtually, to creative-coding as a medium to make their own hyper-specific creative tools.

2024

talk: evolving Your (design) Portfolio, at iiad, delhi

spoke to undergraduate students virtually, reflecting about the evolution of my portfolio over the years.

2023

workshop: set rules, make art, at mit-d, pune

introduced algorithmic-art & creative-coding to 180+ undergraduate-design-students.

2023

talk: my journey across the levels, at iiad, delhi

reflected on my 4-year-long undergraduate journey, for professors & staff of iiad and kingston-university.

2022

talk: on Documentation & Reflection, at science gallery bengaluru

introduced 20 summer-school participants to my process of documentation & reflection, along with kolb's experiential cycle.

2022

talk: Designing & Shipping A Digital Product, at pearl academy

walked third-year-ux-students through a case study, to show them how products are actually designed & shipped in the real world.

2021

talk: Things I Wish I Knew During Foundation Year, at iiad, delhi

reflected virtually on my first year of undergraduate-study, and shared advice for capstone projects with 100+ first-year-students.


exhibitions:

2026
new york

innovation salon, by porter novelli

2025
new york

winter show, by itp, nyu

2023
virtual

p5.js global showcase, by processing foundation

2022
virtual

psyche, by science gallery bengaluru

2022
delhi

graduate show, by iiad, delhi


residencies:

2025

regenesis: flora student residency, by florafauna.ai

explored how accurately image-generating models could paint a self-portrait, without an visual references, but with personal blog-posts instead.

2021

b-side music production residency, by serendipity arts foundation

learnt about sound, music-production and explored the identification of rules that separate music from sound.


awards / honours

2026

seeed studio prize for ai hardware in the wild, at mit hardmode hackathon

2025

tisch school of arts near-full graduate scholarship

based on the school's determination of merit & need.

2022

Best Graduation Project, at iiad, delhi

2022

designathon winner, by lollyop design studio

for sumitra — a chatbot to help small businesses in rural india fill extensive applications for government schemes quickly; by scraping data & recommending relevant schemes.

2021

dcdc-3 communication-design winner, at d'source corona design challenge


education:

2025 - now

m.p.s. in interactive-telecommunications, from new york university

2018 - 2022

b.a. (hons.) in communication design, from indian insitute of art & design

graduated with first-class-honours.