I am always looking for excellent PhD students. If the direction I describe below is exciting, or if you like some of the published work my students and I have done, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
If you are an undergraduate or master’s student looking to work with me, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I often arecommend that students at this stage in their career join an on-going project to make sure research is the right fit, but a number of students I have worked with in this capacity have ultimately led their own research projects!
I study the causes of systemic information gaps in important information resources, and I build systems to fill these information gaps. Systemic information gaps can take many forms: geographic or topical underrepresentation in user generated content, politically unfair content moderation, race or gender disparities in gig work 5-star reputation systems, or representing and recognizing diverse perspectives and needs in computational tools and models. Each type of systemic information gap differs, both in how it was created, and in how to fill the gap.
My work in this space specifically focuses on information gaps in two primary settings: large-scale user generated content platforms, and crowd and gig work systems. I work to understand the systemic patterns of behavior that create information gaps, and the causal, contextual factors that influence individual behavior. We also build tools to help fill information gaps, focusing both on scalable approaches to information production, and on supporting individual needs and goals. I primarily focus on information gaps in the domains of human geography (socioeconomic status, demographic composition, urban-rural, etc.), though some of my work has focused on gender and political dimensions as well.
I am an Assistant Professor in the iSchool at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Virginia Tech, working with Kurt Luther at the Crowd Intelligence Lab. I received PhD from the University of Minnesota, where I worked with Loren Terveen and Brent Hecht as a part of GroupLens.