SONIC would like to congratulate Jasmine (1st year PhD student at MTS Program) and Carmen (Lab manager) on winning Best Student Paper in Group Communication Division at NCA 2019!
Their paper “Effects of Avatar Gender on Negotiation in a Virtual Environment” was written with another student, Cordelia, when they were all undergraduate students at Cornell University.
On October 17, 2019, the National Academies hosted one of the meetings of the science and technology chiefs of the 17 national security intelligence agencies and associates, convened as the National Intelligence Science and Technology Committee (NISTC). The meeting gives the NISTC an opportunity to learn about National Academies’ capabilities and activities that may be relevant to Intelligence Community (IC) interests.
During that day, Noshir was invited to speak about and contributed his insights regarding Trust and AI.
Describing how organizations can mine their “digital exhaust” to address critical HR challenges, Noshir Contractor recently presented keynote “Understanding & Enabling The Future of Work” at The Connected Commons’s Fall Summit. The Connected Commons is a consortium of diverse organizations co-managed by Rob Cross and i4cp.
SONIC had the pleasure to attend OCMC 2019 at University of Illinois. Below are a few highlights:
Left to Right: Noshir, Kyosuke, Yuanxin, Rustom, DiegoDiego presenting his research, “The Diversity Paradox”Yuanxin presenting her research related to enterprise social media.Kyosuke presented his research “The Origins of Network Routing Errors in Organizations”
SONIC is delighted to introduce Rustom Ichhaporia, who is a senior at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, Aurora (IMSA).
This summer, we were proud to host Rustom Ichhaporia as a research intern working on the My Dream Team project. While the internship has ended, we would like to extend the biggest congratulations to him, who recently presented at OCMC 2019, and has his paper accepted at the 8th International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications happening in Lisbon, Portugal!
Rustom’s internship focused on studying how traits and social networks influence team formation. Driven by his passion for teams and statistical analysis, he enjoyed learning multiple social network analysis methods and participated in a research project. During the summer, Rustom organized, analyzed, and described datasets using the R package statnet. He used Exponential Random Graph Models to study the factors that are most likely to explain the selection, acceptance, and rejection of invitations in self-assembling teams.
Rustom and his poster “A Network Approach to Study the Formation of Self-Assembled Teams”
Based on his analysis, he wrote a paper with Diego Gómez-Zará, a PhD student at SONIC, describing the findings of this research study. The paper has been accepted to the 8th International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications to be held in December 2019 in Lisbon. During his time at SONIC, Rustom demonstrated his analytic skills, critical thinking, perseverance, and determination to conduct research projects, all qualities that will make him outstanding as a data scientist.
The SONIC Lab thanks Rustom for all of his hard work this summer, and wishes him luck in his future studies!
Today, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is holding a public discussion of a new report, A Decadal Survey of the Social and Behavioral Sciences: A Research Agenda for Advancing Intelligence Analysis. This decadal survey, the first undertaken in the SBS domains, uncovered new prospects for SBS research and ways to promote interdisciplinary collaboration. The report provides guidance for the development of a 10-year research agenda and identifies key opportunities for SBS research to strengthen intelligence analysis with research directions in areas for improving sensemaking, social cybersecurity, human-machine teaming, and the future analytic workforce.
Noshir Contractor, along with other members of the decadal survey committee and representatives from the federal government and research organizations, are at DC to discuss findings and recommendations from the report as well as next steps to make progress in SBS research and collaboration between research communities and the IC.
Noshir Contractor was recently interviewed by SWR to speak about our work on optimizing teaming and performance for Mission to Mars is covered in a Germany radio show. Listen to the podcast here:
To kick-off the new school year, SONIC is excited to introduce our two new SONIC members, Jasmine and Carmen. Jasmine is joining SONIC as a first-year Ph.D. student in Media, Technology, and Society (MTS) whereas Carmen is joining SONIC as a lab manager.
Jasmine (Yutong) Wu is a first-year Ph.D. student in Media, Technology, and Society (MTS). She graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Information Science and Communication. Her research interests include social network analysis, teamwork, and intergroup bias. Jasmine is excited to apply advanced computational tools to understand team processes in research and industrial settings to further improve management and team performance. In SONIC, she will work on the Enterprise Social Media and Scientific Workforce projects. Outside of work, she enjoys running, swimming, photography, and exploring theaters and art museums in Chicagoland.
Carmen Chan holds a B.S. with Distinction in Research in Communication from Cornell University. She is interested in the intersection of social media, mental health, and interpersonal communication, and is excited to learn ways to apply a social network perspective to further examine online social support for mental health. She will serve as a project manager for the enterprise social media project and support ongoing research at SONIC. Outside of work, she enjoys reading, fashion, going to museums, and exploring coffee shops and brunch places!
Fun fact: Jasmine and Carmen worked at the same research labs (Cornell Group and Interpersonal Communication Lab & Cornell Virtual Embodiment Lab) during undergrad and walked together during graduation! They’re thankful for the opportunity to work with each other again and are already making plans to explore Chicago together!
We would also like to especially wish our SONIC alumni the best of luck with their new careers! Brent Hoagland, former lab manager, is joining Rutgers University as a first year PhD student in Sociology. Marlon Twyman II, graduated in June, is joining the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism as an assistant professor. Michael Schultz, former postdoctoral fellow, is joining Indiana University as an assistant professor at the Department of Sociology. We’ll miss them!
Yesterday, Noshir Contractor was invited to join the SFI ACtionN roundtable in a special ACtioN roundtable discussion on the Complexity of Commerce. He led discussion on one of the four primary pastures – Employee Networks and Retail Management. Details on the meeting and ideas discussed can be found here: https://santafe.edu/events/complexity-commerce
Organized by the Center for Network Research and the Institute for Data Science at Tsung Hua University, The 2019 International Conference of Social Computing took place at Tsing Hua in Beijing, China, at Tsing Hua University. With the goals of exploring interdisciplinary methodological approaches for studying social networks in big data, as well as fostering discipline integration and innovation, the conference invited scholars around the globe to exchange and bridge ideas in modern technology, social science, and humanities.
Lab director, Noshir Contractor, was invited to give a keynote on the topic “Understanding and Enabling the Future of Work.” Other presenters include Charles Edward Catlett, senior computer scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory and a Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, Yang Chen, Associate Professor at Fudan University, James A. Evans, Professor at The University of Chicago, and more.
