Tanay Nagar x’25
Hometown:
Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh, India
What motivated you to study computer science?
I’ve always been fascinated with human nuances—the way languages, cultures, emotions, and anything inherently human shapes the world. Growing up bilingual, I noticed the fluidity of human communication and technology’s struggle to adapt to it. Computer science allows me to work toward developing adaptive, socially-aware technologies that are actually cognizant of socio-cultural values.
Why did you come to UW–Madison?
UW–Madison offers the perfect balance between theoretical depth and interdisciplinary exploration. I was drawn to it because of its strong research culture and commitment to linguistic and cultural diversity.
What is your area of interest/research? Are there courses or projects that you’ve particularly liked, and why?
I study how language technologies shape and are shaped by human communication. My work focuses on language equity, multilingual access, and bias in NLP. My goal is to develop adaptive AI that respects socio-cultural nuances rather than reinforcing systemic disparities.
What are one or two things you’re doing at UW outside of your classes (clubs, study abroad, employment, conferences, internships, etc)? How do these benefit your education, and/or your life?
I’ve been actively involved in the NeuroTech student club and my senior honors thesis. At Neurotech, I’ve been working on an NLP-based mental health support system that aggregates mental health resources across UW–Madison and makes finding them easier, especially for neurodivergent individuals.
In my senior honors thesis, I’m working towards creating an open-source tool that helps evaluate recommendation letters for implicit gender and racial biases, with the goal of developing a fairer and more transparent evaluative process.
Do you have plans for after graduation? If so, what are they?
I plan to pursue a research-focused master’s degree in Natural Language Processing and Human-Computer Interaction to continue working towards my goal of adaptive, socially-aware technologies.
What do you like to do for fun?
I love spending time outdoors—enjoying nature, mountain biking, and paddle boarding.
Is there a way you hope to use your tech knowledge to make the world a little better, and if so, how?
Yes—my goal is to develop language technologies that amplify, rather than erase, linguistic and cultural diversity. Too often, NLP systems are optimized for abstract performance metrics, prioritizing high-resource languages and uniformity over the richness of human expression.
I want to build AI that respects and preserves how people naturally communicate, ensuring technology preserves and enhances us, rather than altering who we are.
What’s the most unexpected career path you’re considering with your CS degree?
I’ve considered linguistic anthropology and language preservation, utilizing the knowledge I have gained in computational linguistics and my CS degree at UW–Madison.