Hrishikesh Telang

Hrishi (Hrishikesh) Telang studies how emerging adults assess the credibility and trustworthiness of information, especially information from conversational AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini, during the transition from high school to college. He is particularly interested in how human-like features of these tools shape trust, and how people evaluate AI-generated information when the stakes are high, as with health and mental health questions, where inaccurate answers can carry real risks.

His broader work sits at the intersection of human information behavior and health communication, with a focus on mental and behavioral health. Recent projects examine how substance use among those who interact with social media is associated with loneliness or psychological distress, and a computational study of how people turn to chatbots for emotional support.

His mixed-methods research has implications for the ethical design of AI chatbots, how information is communicated, and AI literacy initiatives that strengthen emerging adults' ability to make better evaluations of AI-generated information.

M.S. Information Science/Studies, Syracuse University
B.E., Computer Science, University of Mumbai