Research

I design social media environments to promote the safety of vulnerable populations.  I examine the underlying psychological and social processes that contribute to online risk (e.g., online incivility) and designed an online environment to alleviate online risks that may be posed to individuals and society. My work focuses on designing teen-centric sociotechnical solutions that empower adolescents to self-regulate their online risk experiences as a key agent of their online safety. I work with teens to understand their lived experiences of online risks and design online safety solutions that can minimize the harm of online risks while optimizing the benefits online technologies provide to youth.

I design human-centered AI-based systems to promote online security and safety. I apply human-centered approaches to design, develop, and evaluate algorithms for promoting online safety. I designed and developed machine learning (ML) models to tackle online safety concerns such as political misinformation and risky images for youth. In particular, my work focused on human values such as fairness and ethics of AI-based systems and building human-centric applications of such systems. I engage with key stakeholders of AI/ML-based online safety solutions from the data collection stage to the evaluation of the developed systems to ensure that the systems benefit them the most. 

I study computing systems to support the understanding, communication, and management of health-related information to promote the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. For instance, I m currently working on building Large Langauge Models (LLMs)-based Conversational Agents (Chatbots) to 1) support adolescents' knowledge discovery of sensitive topics such as sexual and reproductive health and 2) provide clinically accurate yet empathetic responses to caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease.

I study social processes, behavior, and context in social computing systems (e.g., social media).  I examine how social interaction evolves with social computing systems through the lens of socio-technical systems. I leverage computational techniques (e.g., Natural Language Processing) to collect and analyze large-scale social data to address questions in a variety of domains such as politics and public health. The questions I explore include (not limited to) how social groups are formed and evolved, how members of these groups interact with each other and how social computing systems facilitate such interaction, and how these groups reshape social computing systems.