My research

2025

1. Transnational Feminist Examination into the Machine Learning(ML) Algorithm: Argumentation Mining (AM) and Wearable Reasoner(WR)(Accepted for publication)

   Asmita Ghimire

2024

1. Understanding Transnational Technical Communication (TTC) in Technical and Professional Communication (TPC): What do you mean when you use the word "Transnational"? https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2024.2414101

   Asmita Ghimire

   Bib

   @article{ghimire2024understanding,
     title = {Understanding Transnational Technical Communication in Technical and Professional Communication: What Do You Mean When You Use the Word “Transnational”?},
     author = {Ghimire, Asmita},
     journal = {Technical Communication Quarterly},
     pages = {1--24},
     year = {2024},
     publisher = {Taylor \& Francis},
   }

2023

1. Book review: Transnational research in technical communication: Stories, realities, and reflections by Small, N., & Longo, B. Technical Communication Quarterly https://doi.org/10.1177/10506519231217999

   Asmita Ghimire

2022

1. Argumentation mining: Design thinking from a feminist perspective https://doi.org/10.1145/3513130.3559005

   Asmita Ghimire

   Bib

   @inproceedings{ghimire2022argumentation,
     title = {Argumentation Mining: Design Thinking from A Feminist Perspective},
     author = {Ghimire, Asmita},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 40th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication},
     pages = {178--180},
     year = {2022},
   }

I am a Usability Experience (UX) researcher. From January 2023 to December 2024, I worked as a usability researcher on a project examining how undergraduate students at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities use ChatGPT. This research was conducted in collaboration with a team led by Dr. Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch. Our team includes Kathleen Bolander, Stuart Deets, Alison Obright, Jessica Remcheck, Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch, and me. Together, we explored pedagogical questions around the integration of ChatGPT in the classroom, focusing on the ways and practices instructors can adopt to meaningfully incorporate this technology into student learning.

Additionally, I am also researching on how the social media expressions and digital traces left on social media can serve as a user experience data especially in case where users experiences are not collected. Taking this argument further, I am writing a book chapter that explains how designers and developers in the West, especially at the United States, can rethink through the empathy mapping phase, ideations phase and prototyping phase centering the experience, vocabulary and voices of the marginalized users.

My recent research also interrogates current developments in artificial intelligence, such as argumentation mining, algorithmic rhetoric, and ChatGPT, foregrounding the importance of examining data—how it is extracted and how this process contributes to data colonialism, oppression, and the misappropriation of already marginalized publics and knowledges, particularly in the Global South. I challenge the notion of AI as neutral and objective. By questioning dominant narratives of objectivity in AI, I demonstrate how technical systems and the rhetoric surrounding AI and machine learning algorithms are deeply political and ideological, reflecting the values and biases of those who design them.

Rather than merely critiquing existing ML systems, I advocate for re-designing technologies grounded in feminist ethics and justice. I emphasize the importance of incorporating diverse rhetorical knowledge—especially from users and communities in the Global South—into the design process.

As an international student and scholar, I am a strong advocate and practitioner of linguistic justice and World Englishes. My earliest work in the United States—beginning during my master’s studies—focused on World Englishes, linguistic justice, and transnational pedagogy. Since then, I have continued to explore how these concepts must remain central to both pedagogical practices and innovations, especially in the context of emerging technologies like ChatGPT and other generative AI tools used in classrooms and workplaces.

Scholarly thought, method, and methodology in feminism, transnational feminism, and non-Western rhetoric are deeply connected to my identity and who I am as an individual. For me, transnational feminist perspectives offer rich and transformative insights—especially when it comes to advancing social justice in the field of Technical and Professional Communication (TPC).

My work on feminism, transnational feminism, and non-Western rhetoric began in my home country, Nepal, where I studied one of the first feminist rhetoricians: Yogmaya Neupane. I was honored to publish an article about her life and contributions, which included eradicating the Sati system, advocating for human and women’s rights, and courageously confronting both the government and Brahminical hegemony. I am proud to have shared her story in Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition.