SONIC Director Noshir Contractor recently worked with fellow researchers on a new paper published in Sports Economic Review. The paper, titled “Competing against former teammates predicts team victory”, investigated the effect of playing against former teammates in Indian Premier League India. Read the paper here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277316182400020X

Earlier this week, SONIC Director Noshir Contractor attended GeSI’s AI with Purpose Summit in New York during UN Climate Week. Professor Contractor participated in a number of panels, including “Capacity Building: Research, Education, and Skills Development in AI” as well as “Responding to the Keynote Address of Alan Kay – Panel I – Technical” as part of the Digital Governance Series, hosted by People-Centered Internet. The panelists delved deep into the critical issue of the digital divide between the Global North and South, illuminating the challenges and opportunities in leveraging AI for global development.

SONIC Director Noshir Contractor joined the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) to speak about network science and how it can support applied communication scholarship. Professor Contractor spoke as part of the second lecture in the Future Directions of Applied Communication Research Lecture Series (https://youtu.be/6WvVHpYpRkc). Read more here.

On July 15th, SONIC Director Noshir Contractor participated as a panelist at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Internet, held at the Royal Society in London. Fellow panelists include Sir Nigel Shadbolt from Oxford, Dame Wendy Hall from Southampton, Vicki Nash from Oxford Internet Institute, and Hannes Werthner from Technical University of Vienna. Panelists were joined by respondent Vincent “Vint” Nerf, the co-inventor of Internet. Read more about the event here.

SONIC Director Noshir Contractor has been named Executive Director of Web Science Trust (WST), effective May 1, 2024. WST is a UK-based charity that promotes understanding of how the Web and society mutually influence each other through education and research in web science. Professor Contractor announced that he is honored and excited to, “shape a future where the Web and AI can synergistically benefit an equitable and inclusive humanity.” Congratulations! Read more about WST and Professor Contractor’s service here.

SONIC Director Noshir Contractor recently published an article alongside researchers Mengxiao Zhu, Ruoxiao Su, and Lin Liu. The article, titled “Communicate or not: Exploring the different effects of instrumental and expressive networks on thriving at work”, focuses on the ways in which employees are embedded in their social contexts. Using a structural equation model, the researchers found that communication relations differ in their connections to thriving at work depending on whether they are achieved via advice-seeking versus friendship relations. Read the article here.

As the academic year comes to a close, SONIC congratulates all team members who have received honors and distinctions! The student award winners by department are as follows:

PhD Award Winners:
– Neelam Modi: Best TA Award (IEMS)
– Vsevolod Suschevskiy: Outstanding TA Award (CS)

Communication Studies Award Winners:
– Jessica Cheng: George M. Sargent Award and Honors for Undergraduate Thesis
– Supraja Sudarsan: Departmental Excellence
– Glenna Wang: Departmental Excellence
– Alison Casler: Departmental Excellence

IEMS Award Winners:
– Mika Ng: IEMS Department Award, Academic Excellence Award
– Mark MacGuidwin: IEMS Department Award, Academic Excellence Award
– Victoria Shi: Academic Excellence Award

Congratulations to all!

This Friday, April 19th, SONIC Lab members will participate in a panel hosted by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). SONIC Director Noshir Contractor will be joined by Megan Chan, Suzanne T. Bell, John E. Mathieu, Sydney Begerowski, Hancheng Cao, and Johnathan Kush in a presentation at 9am on Friday morning. The panel is titled, “Text to Teamwork: Decoding Team Dynamics with Computer-Aided Text Analysis.” Learn more about the 2024 SIOP Conference here.

This Wednesday (4/17), the SONIC Lab hosted Stanford University P.h.D. candidate Hancheng Cao to give talk on his current network research. Hancheng’s work focuses on evaluating and designing computing systems for the future of work. The presentation included analysis of various projects to exemplify the opportunities to leverage computation to better understand, support and augment work practices. Thank you, Hancheng! Be sure to watch a recording of the presentation here: https://youtu.be/pOMC82MtOUM