Current Themes

Human-Centered Algorithm Design
How can the techniques and processes of human-centered design be adapted to the underlying technical components of algorithmic systems?

Technology Non-use and Resistance
In contrast to most research on humans and technology, this line of work investigates situations where people do not use some computational or information technology system.

Technologies for Interpreting Text
How can natural language processing and visualization techniques combine to offer novel means of interpreting text data?

Previous Projects

Improving Political Deliberation with Computational Supports for Frame Reflection
Using computational analysis of online political content to support awareness of framing and improve the quality of political discussion and deliberation.

The Farmers’ Market and Everyday Sustainability
Design-oriented studies of a local farmers’ market, focusing on the interconnections between sustainability and other concerns and motivations related to the market.

VERA and VERA+ (external project sites)
Virtual Environments for Raised Awareness – A mobile photosharing application for supporting awareness of, and improved attitudes toward, health-related decisions.

Readership in Social Media
With everyone tweeting and blogging, who’s listening? What are the practices of reading social media?

Computational Metaphor Identification
The development of computational techniques to identify potential conceptual metaphors in written text.

metaViz
Applying computational metaphor identification to poltical blogs in order to find potential conceptual metaphors underlying those blogs. Link: metaviz.ics.uci.edu (link no longer valid).

CMI in Science Education (Dissertation)
My dissertation work was on an educational use of computational metaphor identification to foster critical thinking about metaphors and creative generation of alternative metaphors in the context of science education.

Smarter Blogroll
Socially-scoped topic extraction to enable more manageable, navigable, and transparent blogrolls.

Scenario Visualization
Using graphically animated computational agents to visualize software scenarios.

Normative Echoes
A character-based installation that explores the formation of norms in society while simultaneously combining notions of player-generated content and procedural content manipulation.

EcoRaft (external project site)
An interactive installation designed to help children learn about restoration ecology.

Synthetic Social Interaction
Systems that simulate various social dynamics, exploring how high-level societal patterns emerge from low-level interactions.