News and
Briefs

News and Briefs

Policy Briefs

New Directions in Employment and Training Research and Evaluation: Digital Employment Tools Created with Approaches from Human-Computer Interaction, FEBRUARY 2022
Marisa Putnam, Tawanna Dillahunt, and Asaph Glosser (pdf)
The Promises and Perils of Technology for Marginalized Job Seekers, JANUARY 2021
Tawanna R. Dillahunt, Alex Jiahong Lu, and Afton Branche-Wilson (pdf )
Mobility-On-Demand Versus Fixed-Route Transit Systems: An Evaluation of Traveler Preferences in Low-Income Communities, MARCH 2019
Tawanna R. Dillahunt and Xiang ‘Jacob’ Yan (pdf )

News

2026

October 9: Zanie’s Lab Comedy Show (featuring Ron Taylor)
September 14: Featured in Vanderbilt’s New Faculty spotlight
September 3: Denny’s dissertation proposal defense! Congratulations, Denny!
August 24: College of Connected Computing New Faculty Welcome and Orientation, Nashville, TN
August 19: CCC/CS Faculty Retreat at the Scarritt Bennett Center, Nashville, TN
August: Joined Vanderbilt University as Professor and Associate Dean for Special Initiatives in the College of Connected Computing!
August 12: Going-away celebration in Ann Arbor
July 15: My UMSI farewell reception 🥹. I love you UMSI!
June 30: Poster accepted to CSCW 2026
June 24: Ria’s pre-candidacy defense! Congratulations, Ria!
May 21: CHAT game community session at Eastside Community Network, Detroit, MI
May 19: Symposium on Digital Schooling at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
April 30: UMSI Commencement
April 13 – 17: Attended CHI 2026 in Barcelona, Spain, with seven papers and a late-breaking work!
April 8: Annisa’s thesis defense! Congratulations, Annisa!
April 2: Jared’s dissertation proposal! Congratulations, Jared!
March 6: Gave a colloquium, “When ‘Good’ Systems Fail: What Employment Technologies Miss Under Real-World Constraints,” at the University of Iowa Department of Computer Science, Iowa City, IA
February 23: Mustafa Naseem and I received a 2026 Google Academic Research Award for “Building Community-Driven Scam Prevention: A Survivor-Centered Approach to Digital Safety”
February 9: Welcome, Dr. Sylvia, to the Social Innovations Group as a postdoc!

2025

December 17: Held our AI education co-design session with Friends of Parkside, Detroit, MI (with 40+ attendees!)
November 13 – 14: Attended the Princeton University Keller Center Advisory Council meeting, Princeton, NJ
October 18 – 22: Attended CSCW 2025 in Bergen, Norway, with two papers
September 24 – 25: NSF ReDDDoT PI Meeting
September 19: Panelist, Detroit URC 30th Anniversary Highlights Panel, Detroit, MI
September – October: AI Show & Tell workshops for Detroit small businesses with DNEP
September 1: Officially promoted to Professor of Information! 🎉
July 31: I took my first Waymo ride!
July 28 – 31: 2025 CRA Summit on AI in Undergraduate and Graduate Education and Research in San Francisco, CA
July 8 – 13: Attended my first National Federation of the Blind Conference, in New Orleans, LA
June 23 – 26: Attended FAccT conference in Athens, Greece
June 17 – 22: Travel to Catania to visit Josh
June 12: Sylvia’s dissertation defense! Congratulations, Sylvia!!
May 9 – 13: Celebrated mother’s day with mom in NC
May 3: Kevin’s birthday bash!
April 18th: Weekend in Chicago
April 13: Attended Mozart’s Così fan tutte (a remake with robots and artificial intelligence)
April 11: MSI Visit Day
April 11: Sylvia’s Dissertation Proposal Defense!
April 7: Rackham’s Annual ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Celebration, Congratulations, Alex!
March 26: Steve’s Defense! Congratulations, Steve!
March 20: CRA Leadership Academy check-in
March 19: Refresher – Foundations of Community Engagement, Ginsberg training
February 24 – 25: ALA Visit
Feb 20 – 21: CRA Leadership Academy
February 6 – 7: Drive to MSU for Workshop on Digital Skills & Workforce Development, East Lansing, MI

2024

Dec. 20: Received CRLT Faculty Funding!
Dec. 15: Winter Commencement and Alex’s hooding. Congratulations Prof. Lu!!
Dec. 10: CSCW Articles accepted! Sociocultural Factors in Digital Skills Learning: A Community-Based Intervention Among U.S. Public Housing Adults. Congratulations, Soyoung! And, The Development of a New Measure of Collective Digital Literacy: Community Digital Capacity!
Dec. 8 – 10: Trip to Washington, DC, for CCC workshop on Supporting At-Risk Users through Responsible Computing
Nov. 28: Thanksgiving with family.
Nov. 26: Drive to New Bern
Nov. 26: Lunch with poet Gaby C., my Radcliffe neighbor. Fun times!
Nov. 25: Fly to RDU for Thanksgiving
Nov. 14: Fly back to DTW
Nov. 10: Trip to La Paz Waterfall Gardens
Nov. 9: Central Square in Santo Domingo. I experience La Sorbetera de Lolo Mora (yummy, yummy :p)
Nov. 8 – 14: Trip to Costa Rica for CSCW 24
Nov. 2: Walk to the polls for early voting
Oct. 29-Oct. 30: ReDDDoT Kickoff Meeting
Oct. 25: CTW Goal setting workshop in Detroit
Oct. 22: 701 Guest lecture for 701
Oct. 9: Happy birthday, Latonya!
Oct. 2 – Oct. 6: Flight to RDU for NC Seafood Festival!
Sept. 21: USC vs UM Watch Party at Matt and Ruth’s
Sept. 14: UM/Arkansas game with Steve!
Sept. 12: PPFP Welcome Dinner!
August 22: Attended Trauma-Informed Care for Entrepreneurs in Detroit
August 16: Awarded ReDDDoT Phase 1: Planning Grant – Bridging Past and Future: Fostering Community-Researcher Synergy through Planning!!
August 14: Meeting with Paul R. before he takes off to Cambridge!
August 10: Alex and community members host the ECN Children’s Book Reading!
August 9th: CTW Planning Workshop at JEI
August 6: Jared begins virtual design workshops!
August 6: Semester unofficially begins!
August 3: Mover’s arrive! Unpacking begins.
August 2: Drive to Ann Arbor
July 29 – August 1: Hang out in London until renters are out of my home.
July 29: NY to London, Ontario. Stop at Glen Park Tavern in Williamsville, NY (near Buffalo for National Wing Day).
July 28: Head back to Michigan. The first stop— Rome, NY. Goodbye, New England!
July 28: Mover’s arrive!
July 24 – Drop off keys at MIT and early dinner with Holly!
July 23 – Birthday celebration!
July 3 – Dinner with Cameron in Cambridge!
June 12 – July 25: Black Corporate Board Readiness training
May 29 – June 3: Mom and sister visit for a New England Retreat – visits to Revere Beach and Salem, MA; Portsmouth, NH; Ogunquit, ME; Brattleboro, VT; Mystic, CT; Falmouth, MA (Cape Cod); and back to Boston!
May 20: Packing begins
May 17 – 19: Short break and retreat to a Purposely Lost Treehouse in Sanford, Maine
May 15: Alex Lu successfully defends his dissertation entitled, Reimagining Safety and Surveillance with Eastside Detroiters!
May 3: Aarti Israni successfully defends her dissertation entitled, Fostering Psychological Safety: Supporting Entrepreneurial Transitions among Financially- Constrained Aspiring Entrepreneurs!
April 14: Finally took a Freedom Trail walking tour of Revolutionary Boston!
April 11: Our paper was published in the most recent edition of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and discussed in the Editorial for the issue!
April 7: Brunch with Aaron (former UM PPFP)!
March 23: Attended the 17th Annual Vinfen Film Festival! Vinfen’s mission is to “transform lives by building the capacity of individuals, families, organizations, and communities to learn, thrive, and achieve their goals. “
March 20 – 23: SIGCSE virtual conference, first-time attendee
March 12: Fly to DC for Ahmad’s Homegoing in Virginia. I miss you, Ahmad.
March 4: Cornell Tech Visit. I experience peace in NYC on Roosevelt, Island
March 1 – 3: FASPE Reunion, Princeton, NJ
February 27 – 29: NSF SCC PI’s Meeting at Vanderbilt
February 29: I learned about the passing of one of my best friends. Rest in Power, Ahmad :(.
February 26: Vanderbilt tour and dinner with Carlos (former UM PPFP) & Julie!
February 24: Fly to Nashville, drive to Huntsville, Alabama (first time in Alabama), and take a quick tour of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center!
February 20: Congrats, Soyoung, on passing your pre-candidacy oral exam!
February 16: Gave talk at Stanford’s Seminar on People, Computers and Design
February 12-18: SFO and San Bruno
January 29 – 31: Collective & Society-Centered AI Workshop at Google, Atlanta
January 15: Happy MLK Day!
January 8: Earned a Certificate of Achievement for completing the Executive Program: Corporate Innovation: Strategies for Leveraging Ecosystems from MIT Sloan School of Management!
January 3: Lunch with Prof Mai Hassan (former UM PPFP) at Sumiao Hunan Kitchen!
January 1st: New Year’s! Color Purple w/LaTonya

2023

December 23: Our article, Human Technology Intermediation to Reduce Cognitive Load: Understanding Healthcare Staff Members’ Practices to Facilitate Telehealth Access in an FQHC Patient Population, was accepted into the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA). Congratulations, Marcy and team!
December 19th – 27th: Holidays in New Bern, NC w/Family
December 15: Jared’s Successful Prelim Defense! Congrats Jared!
December 13: Gave my talk at MIT titled, “Inclusive Futures: Transforming Technology Design through Alternative Narratives.”
December 12th: E-Planning final meeting
December 6: DUSP & DINES with students!
December 5: MLK Visiting Scholar Lunch and Talk with Christine-Taylor Butler: The Importance of Dreaming: Why Diversity Matters in STEM and Children’s Literature
December 2: Our article Sustaining Community-Based Research in Computing: Lessons from Two Tech Capacity Building Initiatives for Local Businesses is now recommended for final acceptance to PACM (CSCW)!
November 27 – October 1: Trip to Berkshires (writing retreat), randomly met Aleta, an MIT DUSP alum and protege of Paolo Freire!
November 24: Native American Heritage Day
November 23: Thanksgiving
November 21: Alex’s Job talk prep
November 21: Oghenamaro Anuya’s successful dissertation proposal. Congratulations!
November 20: Jared/Tawanna meeting with Keesa
November 16 -17: LCAU Conference and Just Climate Futures Panel talk
November 15 – Gave University of Toronto SRI Seminar talk titled, “Rethinking Digital Platforms for Equitable Employment Access: Empowering Marginalized Job Seekers with Alternative Approaches to Employment.“
November 14 -Day at CSCAIL, gave a talk titled, “Amplifying Voices: Community-Engaged Surveillance Redesign via Speculative Design and Photovoice.”
November 10th: Presented, In Search of Community-Based Solutions to Transportation Challenges among Minoritized Communities at MIT DUSP’s International Conference on Public Participation and Information Technologies (ICPPIT23): Nov. 9-10 Conference
November 9th: Met with Profs Deb Roy, Director, MIT Center for Constructive Communication; Co-Founder, CEO & Chair, Cortico and Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, Head of Translational Research!
November 8 – MLK Visiting Scholar Talk and Lunch Presentation with Jean Luc Pierite: “Planning in the Native Slipstream: Urban Indigenous Futurisms and Alternative Presents”
November 7th – Election day!
November 6th: Gave Harvard CRCS Seminar titled, “Reimagining Tech Design: Crafting Inclusive Futures Through Alternative Narratives.”
November 3 – Met with Dr. Ogilvie about BCBR
November 2nd: Met with LaKesia
November 1st: Met with Dave about podcast editing
November 1: NSF SCC Steering Committee Meeting
October 31st: Met with Nicholas Collura, program director of Radius and MIT chaplain (Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life (ORSEL)!
October 31st: Record Community Conversations Podcast Pilot Episode 0
October 30: Sheena Erete visits MIT; we enjoy a wonderful dinner with Danielle Wood!
October 29th: Welcome to the world, Bryce (great nephew #4)!
October 27th: Guest Lecturer for MIT DUSP’s Indigenous Planning with Janelle, Jean Luc, and wonderful students!
October 23: Earned a Certificate of Achievement for completing the Executive Program: Business Sustainability Strategy: Technology and Management!
October 23rd: E-Planning Session
October 19th: Guest Lecturer at PAR Presentation with Alex Lu!
October 18th: Reconnected with Les Williams, a UVA engineer and Harvard MBA!
October 18th: Met with Prof Katrin Kaeufer, PAR extraordinaire from MIT!
October 18th: Meeting with MIT DUSP Prof Phil Thompson, urban planner, political scientist, and former Deputy General Manager of the NYHA and Director of NYC’s Mayor’s Office of Housing Coordination! Wow!
October 18th: MLK Visiting Scholar lunch with Louis J. Massiah, Documentary and the Power of Knowledge Sharing.
October 18th – Attended the Bodily Sovereignty Panel
October 16th: Meeting with Glenn Ricart, Internet Entrepreneur and founder of US IGNITE.
October 16th: Held FASPE Info session w/MIT DUSP students
October 16 – e-Planning Lunch Session
October 16 – Meeting wtih Sara from DUSP
October 15 – Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons conducting, Yo-Ya Ma
October 11 – 13: Completed MIT Sloan Course 3: Disciplined Entrepreneurship Course
October 10: Vaishnav’s Successful Dissertation Defense. Congratulations, Vaishnav!
October 10: MIT MLK Luncheon online
October 9: Selected to receive a Google Inclusion Research Award with Ben Greene!
October 6: LaTonya’s birthday party!
October 3: Our article Community Tech Workers: Scaffolding Digital Engagement Among Underserved Minority Businesses” has been awarded an Honorable Mention and Impact Recognition at CSCW 2023. Congrats Julie, Kristin, Christie Baer, Lu, and Aaron Jackson!
October 3: Our article How Recent Migrants Develop Trust Through Community Commerce: The Emergence of Sociotechnical Adaptation has received recognition for Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion at CSCW! A selection of papers out of 1000+ submissions across CSCW 2023 cycles were awarded Best Paper Awards, Honorable Mention Awards, Recognitions for Contributions to Diversity & Inclusion, Methods Recognitions, and Impact Recognitions. Congrats, Joey and Sylvia!
October 3: e-Planning Seminar Series
October 3: Meeting with Phil Clay, MIT DUSP and former MIT chancellor!
October 2: Meeting with Jason Jackson at MIT DUSP!
October 1: Farewell and Congratulations to Shruti Sannon’s exciting position as the new Technology Policy Director at the ACLU of Washington! Shruti was a CI Innovation Fellow with SIG, starting in January 2022.
September 27: Meeting w/Catherine D’Ignazio!
September 27: Meeting with Christine Taylor Butler
September 28: Attended Participatory Action Research course
September 26: Attended Participatory Action Research course
September 26: Met with Takeo to discuss Podcast
September 2: MA Car Inspection — Passed!
September 20th: D+F Conversation on Data, Bodies, and Territories by Tierra Común and the Data + Feminism Lab
September 19th: 2023-2024 MLK Scholars Cohort Dinner w/Daniel Hastings!
September 18th: Gave a research overview at MIT’s CoLab.
September 14th and 15th: Completed a second MIT Sloan Course Questions are the Answer.
September 13th: MIT / MLK Lunch
September 9th: Drove to Providence to the Rhode Island Seafood Festival!
September 7th: DUSP Fall BBQ event
September 7th: First DUSP faculty meeting and presentation
September 6th: Final MIT Sloan Course begins, Strategies for Leveraging Ecosystems
September 5th: DUSP Fall Elective Course Showcase (an opportunity to see what courses to explore at DUSP)
September 1: Fall Semester begins! First day as an MIT MLK Fellow
August 31: Meeting w/Bryant – advising
August 24: MLK Scholars overview
August 17: Flight to Detroit – FOP event Videovoice
August 8 – 17: New Bern, North Carolina w/Fam
August 5th: LaTonya and I randomly roadtrip to Portland, Maine (personal lobster fest!)
August 2: Began First MIT Classes at Sloan: Business Sustainability Strategy: Technology and Management
July 28th: Final Happy Hour at Radcliffe w/
July 20: Welcome DUSP MLK w/Pam
July 14: Met with President Gilda and Amon Milner from Olin College!
July 12: Meeting with Aaron Jackson
July 12: Summer Talks @ Radcliffe
July 8 – 9: Weekend trip to Essex Spa in Essex, VT and Burlington, VT. What amazing cities!
July 7: Coffee w/Aisha from NYU
July 7: Dinner with Jeff!
June 20 – 22: Racial Equity in Technology and Entrepreneurship 2023 workshop at NYU.
June 19: Happy Juneteenth! Flight to NYC, mini-tour of Greenwich Village, and night at Comedy Cellar to see Keith Robinson.
June 15: I met with cartoonist and fellow Radcliffe Fellow Ebony Flowers!
June 14: Flight back to Boston
June 12 – 14: University of Lausanne (UNIL) visit and talk, meeting with Bruno Correia at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). We saw Jacques Dubochet, a Nobel prize winner in Chemistry at UNIL!
June 11: Train to Bern and Lucerne to meet Natalie from Michigan!
June 10: Self-guided walking tour and scavenger hunt of Lausanne
June 9: Flight to Geneva, travel to Lausanne
June 7 – 9: Bus back to Krakow, final sessions
June 3 – 7: Introduction to Poland, travel to Oswiecim, Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, walking tour of Auschwitz.
June 2: Flight to Krakow and walking tour
May 27 – June 2: FASPE Welcome & Introduction, Brandenburg Visit of the Memorial Site and Exhibition, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, German Technology Museum, German Resistance Memorial Center, Walking Tour of Berlin, Visit to Train Station Grunewald / Track 17, House of the Wannesee Conference, Topography of Terror, Bavarian Quarter Memorial Installation
May 25: Flight to Berlin to begin the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics program as a Design & Tech Faculty Co-Advisor with Mary Gray!
May 19: End of Year Radcliffe Celebration! I will miss everyone and look forward to meeting the summer fellows!
March 30: Attended the Kim and Judy Davis Dean’s Lecture in the Social Sciences: Conversation with Tressie McMillan-Cottom. Amazing discussion!
March 29: Birth of my third great-nephew! Welcome to the world, Sirron!
March 27: Took the Oahu Island Experience feat. North Shore tour with Stephanie!
March 26: Toured Oahu with mom (happy birthday!), sister, my cousins Darrell and Marlena!
March 23 – 25: Attended the CRA IDEALS workshop in Honolulu, HI! I co-presented the early years’ session on networking with John B. Vicente.
March 15: Our Late-Breaking Work (LBW), “A Collective Approach to Providing Digital Skills Training Among U.S. Public Housing Residents,” was accepted to CHI 2023. Congratulations, Soyoung!!
March 4: I celebrated my mom’s 80th birthday in New Bern, NC!
January 17: Our article, Understanding Food Planning Strategies of Food Insecure Populations: Implications for Food Agentic Technologies, was accepted to CHI 2023! Go, team! I’m very proud of this mid-western collaboration with Notre Dame and Purdue!
January 17: Our article, From Surveillance-as-Safety to Safety-through-Noticing: Rethinking Surveillance and Safety through a Photovoice Study with Eastside Detroit Residents, was accepted to CHI 2023! Congratulations, Alex!
January 14-16: Myrtle Beach getaway with fam!
January 1st: Happy New Year! Made and ate a delicious traditional southern New Year’s dinner with LaTonya !

2022

December 20 – 29: I celebrated the holidays with my family in New Bern, NC!
December 6: Our article, Equitable Research PRAXIS: A Framework for Health Informatics Methods, was published in the IMIA Yearbook
December 10: 5-mile trail run with Elizabeth at Middlesex Fells Reservation. My first-time trail running!
December 3: Travel to New Hampshire with LaTonya–my first visit to the state!
December 1: Our article, Targeting patients’ cognitive load for telehealth video visits through student-delivered helping sessions at a United States Federally Qualified Health Center: An equity-focused, mixed methods pilot intervention study, was accepted to JMIR! Congratulations, Marcy and team!
November 30: Our case study, “Organizing Community-based Events in Participatory Action Research: Lessons Learned from a Photovoice Exhibition,” was accepted to CHI as a case study! Congratulations, Alex, Shruti, and team!
November 28: Our CSCW article, How Recent Migrants Develop Trust Through Community Commerce: The Emergence of Sociotechnical Adaptation, was accepted! Congratulations, Joey and Sylvia!
November 28: Our CSCW article, Opportunities for Social Media to Support Aspiring Entrepreneurs with Financial Constraints, was accepted! Congratulations, Aarti!
November 18: Panelist for “Work-Life Balance in Academia” panel at MIT’s Path of Professorship!
November 14: Presented “Collecting and Disseminating Alternative Narratives of Digital Futures: A Discussion of Equitable Approaches” at Harvard’s Science, Technology, and Society Seminar: STS Circle at Harvard
November 6: I ran my second half marathon: Cambridge Half Marathon
October 25: Presented “Speculative Futuring: Toward equitable digital futures among marginalized communities” at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s private talks
October 8 – 12: Flew to Washington DC to attend our NSF SCC PI’s meeting
October 4: Flew back to Detroit to lead the Detroit 313 Digital Inclusion Week Panel, “Aligning Technology Design with Community Strengths and Values,” with Autumn Evans, Richard Grundy, Alex Lu, and Zachary Rowe
September 1: Officially on sabbatical as a William Bentinck-Smith Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute (HRI)
July 30: Cambridge arrival!
July 29: Left Ann Arbor for Cambridge; brunch with Lovida before taking off!
July 28: Movers arrive
July 21-24: I celebrated my birthday with my family in Charlotte, NC with family!
June 28 – 30: Attended the Racial Equity in Technology Entrepreneurship Workshop at NYU in NYC.
June 5: I ran my first half marathon: Dexter to Ann Arbor!
May 20 – 27: Boston and Sedona trip/vacay w/LaTonya!
May 20: Selected as a 2022-23 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow!
May 15: Ran 10 miles!
May 1 – 5: CHI in NOLA. Congrats Fernando and Alex and Savana for wonderful presentations!
Apr. 29: Joey graduates!
Mar. 31: Microsoft Research Podcast with Mary Gray, Zachary Rowe, and Joanna Velazquez: Just Tech: Centering Community-Driven Innovation at the Margins episode 2
March 30: Panelist for Women In Tech: Closing the Gap Panelist, University of Michigan’s Detroit Center
March 30: Presented, “Building with, not for: Case Studies of Community-Driven Employment Innovations”, Microsoft Research, Race and Technology: A Research Lecture Series
March 9: Presented “In Search of Community-Based Solutions to Transportation Challenges among Historically-Excluded and Transportation-Scarce Communities,” for the University College London Interaction Center (UCLIC) Virtual Seminar Series
Nov. 19: Presented “In Search of Community-Based Solutions to Transportation Challenges among Historically-Excluded and Transportation-Scarce Communities” at the NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP), (virtual), November 19, 2021.
Feb 22: Q/A and Virtual Fireside Chat with Computer Science Prof. Andrés Monroy-Hernández and students!
Feb 11: My brief with Marisa Putnam and Asaph Glosser, New Directions in Employment and Training Research and Evaluation: Digital Employment Tools Created with Approaches from Human-Computer Interaction, was published with the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services!
Feb 11: My article with Alex Lu, Aarti Israni, Ruchita Lodha, Savana Brewer, Tiera Robinson, Angela Brown Wilson, and Earnest Wheeler, The Village: Infrastructuring Community-based Mentoring to Support Adults Experiencing Poverty was officially approved for CHI 2022!
Feb 11: My article with Juan F. Maestre, Vaishnav Kameswaran, Erica Poon, John Osorio Torres, Mia Gallardo, Samantha E. Rasmussen, Patrick C. Shih, Alice Bagley, Samuel L.A. Young, and Tiffany C. Veinot, Trust, Reciprocity, and the Role of Timebanks as Intermediaries to Address Healthcare Transportation Barriers was officially approved for CHI 2022!
Feb 9: UMSI Media Mention about my People of ACM profile!

2021

December 15: Named as an ACM Distinguished Member for Outstanding Engineering Contributions to Computing!
September 3-7: Our team is one of 6 project teams to be included in the Ewing Mario Kauffman Foundation’s Community-Engaged Research portfolio! We received $300k to develop and research the efficacy of our program to increase the technology literacy of lower-income and older entrepreneurs in Detroit, MI! More information in our UM internal announcement.
September 2: First time back in the classroom in 18 months! I’m a little rusty and uneasy behind 3 masks!
October 15: Birth of my second great-nephew! Welcome to the world Dru!
August 30: In-person classes resume
August 25: We received funding from the National Science Foundation to support our Community Tech Workers project! SCC-IRB Track 2: The “Community Tech Workers”: A Community-Driven Model to Support Economic Mobility and Bridge the Digital Divide in the U.S. ($1.4 million). Very excited about this work with my UM colleagues Julie Hui, Kentaro Toyama, Mustafa Naseem and our community partners!
August 10: We received funding as the National Science Foundation’s inaugural class of projects supported by the Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) Program! EAGER: SAI: Community-Informed Surveillance Infrastructure for Public Safety and Equity ($299K). Very excited about this work with Mark Ackerman, Jeffrey Morenoff, and UMSI Ph.D. student/advisee Alex Lu!
August 9: We received funding from UMOR’s Research Catalyst and Innovation (RCI) Program Anti-Racism grants to support Alex’s project: Surveillance Tech and the Racial Divide: Using Videovoice to Capture Black Experiences of Policing among Eastside Detroiters ($49.9K)
August 2: Congratulations to Joey Hsiao, who successfully defended his dissertation titled, “Online and Offline Adaptation among Transnational Newcomers: Technology-mediated Social Exchange and Trust Development.”
August 2: I was awarded the 2020-2021 faculty UMSI Award for Impact in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion!
April 23: Presented, “Rethinking the Role of Digital Tools: Providing support among Job Seekers Experiencing Marginalization” as a part of Yale’s Computation and Society Initiative.
April 20: Presented, “Rethinking the Role of Digital Tools: Providing support among Job Seekers Experiencing Marginalization” as a Skip Ellis Distinguished Lecturer at Microsoft Research
February 19: Presented, “Designing and Rethinking the Role of Digital Tools in Support of Employment among Job Seekers Experiencing Marginalization” at Carnegie Mellon’s HCII seminar series!
February 9: Elated to see that Get Wreck(tech) Support spotlighted me for Black History Month this year! Thank you!
January 26: Work cited in Davi Merchan’s article, “Online Grocery Delivery Service Company Zero Expands to Los Angeles, Growing Its Reach in The Plastic-free Food Market”!
January 15: We (Julie Hui and I) and our community partner Zachary Rowe of Friends of Parkside, received funding from UM Poverty Solutions and the Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center to support our project, “The ‘Community Tech Workers’: A Community-Driven Model to Support Economic Mobility by Bridging the Digital Divide” ! This is part of UM’s Academic Research Partnerships Grant Program, Research on Strategies to Prevent and Alleviate Poverty in Michigan.
January 11: Our policy brief, “The Promises and Perils of Technology for Marginalized Job Seekers” is available through UM Poverty Solutions!

2020

December 29: Our journal article, ‘A Library of People’: Online Resource-Seeking in Low-Income Communities, has been conditionally accepted to CSCW & Social Computing. Congratulations, Aarti Israni!
December 12: Several articles with amazing colleagues were accepted to CHI 2021: “Examining the Use Online Platforms for Employment: A Survey of U.S. Job Seekers,” “Examining Mobility Among People Living with HIV in Rural Areas,” “Eliciting Tech Futures Among Black Young Adults: A Case Study of Remote Speculative Co-Design,” and “Uncovering the Promises and Challenges of Social Media Use in the Low-Wage Labor Market: Insights from Employers.”
October 12: Our proposal, “Speculative Design Methods As An Inclusive Approach To Improve Tech Skills And Literacy,” was funded by the Google Ethical AI research team ($30k)!
October 12: Our article, “Mobility-on-Demand Versus Fixed-Route Transit Systems: An Evaluation of Traveler Preferences in Low-Income Communities,” was accepted to Transportation Research Part A! Congratulations Xilei, XIang Yan, Jacob, and Pascal!
October 12: Our article, “SkillsIdentifier: A Tool to Promote Career Identity and Self-efficacy Among Underrepresented Job Seekers,” was accepted to HICSS! Congratulations, Joey Hsiao!
Our panel (Christina N. Harrington, Angela D. R. Smith, Jamika Bure, Jakita Thomas, and Yolanda Rankin), Anti-Racism in Design, was accepted to CSCW 2020!
September 23: I was nominated by the Eastside Community Network’s team and Board of Directors as this year’s Outstanding Partner Award honoree!! This award honors a community leader or organization that exemplifies a selfless commitment to the betterment of eastside residents, businesses, and our children.
August 14: NBCNews.com interview: Coronavirus thrust colleges into a global experiment – and it may pay off
August 11: Panelist for A Conversation About an Inclusive Future of Work, Microsoft New Future of Work workshop
July 19: Birth of my first great-nephew! Welcome to the world, Brayden!
July 3: Cited in the Bridge Detroit article, “How Latinas in Southwest Detroit turned their part-time hustle of delivering groceries in their community into a full-time job.”
June 3: Day 2: Building Adaptive Capacity panelist for 3-day Learning environments in the time of COVID-19: (Towards) Evidence-Driven Innovation and Resilience at the University of Michigan MIDAS workshop. Slides (and speaker notes) are available here. Thanks again Abigail Jacobs and Christopher Brooks, for inviting me!
March 29: Inaugural recipient of the Skip Ellis Early Career Award (SEECA) along with Dr. Michel Kinsy!
May 21: the Regents of the University of Michigan formally approved my promotion and tenure recommendation! Congratulations, Pedja Klasnja, Silvia Lindtner, Daniel Romero, and Tiffany Veinot! I am thrilled and was so excited to hear the provost give a shout-out to my research and two other UM faculty members!
May 5: Panelist for Transparent Qualitative Research Virtual Panel (my slides here)
April 24: Panelist for CHIMe’s Being a Minority in SIGCHI virtual panel
March 23: Governor Whitmer issues Stay at Home Order
March 17: Berkeley Algorithmic Fairness Opacity Working Group (AFOG) and Google talks canceled.
March 12: Our blue bag lunch talks at the Center on Finance, and Law Policy were canceled.
March 11: Classes canceled and will resume on March 16 delivered remotely.
March 7-8: Weekend trip to Cleveland! Lovely vegan dinner with mocktails at the Marble Room!
March 6: Our article, “Community Collectives: Low-tech Social Support for Digitally-Engaged Entrepreneurship,” received an honorable mention at CHI 2020!
Our design fictions workshop paper, “Eliciting Speculative Design Fictions from the Margins,” was accepted to the Design Fictions workshop at CHI 2020!
Feb 25: Fat Tuesday dinner at Vicente’s with Xavier and Sun
January 24: Our panel, “Transparency in Qualitative Research: Increasing Fairness in the CHI Review Process,” was accepted at CHI 2020!
January 16: Our papers, “Positive Feedback and Self-Reflection: Features to Support Self-Efficacy among Underrepresented Job Seekers” and “Community Collectives: Low-tech Social Support for Digitally-Engaged Entrepreneurship,” were accepted to CHI 2020! Congratulations, everyone!
January 6: Classes start!

2019

December 23 – 27: I spent the holiday with my family in NC!
November 27 – December 1: Spent the holiday with my family in NC
September 29: Celebratory dinner for Sun’s upcoming birthday!
September 28: Played in the Trees at “TreeRunner Adventure Park”!
September 3: Classes start!
August 28 – August 30: Flew to Atlanta, GA for NSF’s Workshop on Fairness, Ethics, Accountability, and Transparency (FEAT) at GaTech!
August 13: Our work, “Reaching Hard-To-Reach Populations: An Analysis of Survey Recruitment Methods,” was accepted to CSCW 2019 Interactive Posters! Congratulations, Esme and Jacob!
August 1: Gave the talk “Designing and Envisioning Digital Tools for Low-resource Job Seekers in the U.S.” at IIIT-Bangalore. Thanks again, Janaki Srinivasan, for the invitation!
July 29 – July 31: Microsoft Research India, Visiting Researcher. Gave the talk “Designing and Envisioning Digital Tools for Low-resource Job Seekers in the U.S.” Thanks again, Joyojeet Pal, for the invitation!
July 31: Our article, “An alternative to slow transit, drunk driving, and walking in bad weather: An exploratory study of ridesourcing mode choice and demand,” was published! https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0966692318306665
July 11: Presented How to Social Media Responsibly to the wonderful students who attended the DiverseNote Mobility Technical Education Training Program
July 10: Presented our Year 2 Report Out on Designing Next-Generation Digital Employment Tools to the SE Michigan Workforce Development Board Executive Committee
July 6-7: Drove to Niagara Falls, ON, with family!
July 4 – July 11: Family visit to Ann Arbor, MI
June 9: Our paper, “EmoKey: Tangible Online Authentication,” was accepted as a poster at the symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2019) conference! Congratulations, April on your first publication!
May 17: Gave the talk “Designing and Envisioning Digital Tools for Low-resource Job Seekers” at UC Irvine! Thanks, everyone, for a great trip!
May 4 – May 11: Attended the CHI conference in Glasgow, Scotland
April 26 and 27: Spent time with family in Minneapolis and St. Paul!
April 25: Gave the talk “Designing and Envisioning Digital Tools for Low-resource Job Seekers” at the University of Minnesota Institute for Advanced Study (IAS).
March 21: Our paper, “Designing Technology to Support Safety for Transgender Women & Non-Binary People of Color,” was accepted as a work-in-progress at the Designing Interactive Systems conference! Congratulations on your first publication, Denny!
March 15: Our paper, “Online grocery delivery services: An opportunity to address food disparities in transportation-scarce areas,” received a Best Paper Award at CHI (top 1%)!
Feb. 16-17: Gave a keynote, “Designing and Envisioning Digital Tools for Low-resource Job Seekers,” for the CRAW/iAAMCS DLS at the MinneWIC conference at UM-Duluth! What a beautiful place and a fantastic group of students, faculty, and staff!
Feb. 9: Gave an invited talk for the Break Out Session Screenshot: How to Social Media Responsibly at the “Challenge to Change Expo-Youth Edition” (Ypsilanti Community High School). This event was sponsored by the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. – Rho Delta Zeta Chapter.
Feb. 7: Gave an invited lecture to Ron Metoyer’s HCI Class at Notre Dame on “How to engage with vulnerable populations for needfinding and design.”
Saturday, Feb. 2: Went snowboarding less than 30 minutes away at the Brighton ski resort in Brighton, MI. I didn’t realize there were “slopes” nearby :).

2018

December 22 – 29: Flew to Portland, OR, drove to Carson City Hot Springs for soaking, and Crystal Mountain for snowboarding for a much-needed vacation! Thanks, MD and Ronnie, for inviting us to your Holiday Party! Your gumbo was the best! Thanks again, Noel, for the yoga pants! Awesome job on the slopes, Q–way to represent the D!
December 11: Saw Michelle Obama at Little Caesar’s Arena in Detroit! Thanks, Earnest and Julie, for encouraging me to go on a school night, and thanks, T. Nicole for joining me!
December 10: Our papers, “DreamGigs: Designing a Tool to Empower Low-Resource Job Seekers”, “Online grocery delivery services: An opportunity to address food disparities in transportation-scarce areas,” and “Towards an Effective Digital Literacy Intervention to Assist Returning Citizens with Job Search” were accepted! Congratulations again, Alex, Sylvia and Esme, and Finda and Kentaro!
December 5 – 9 : CHI PC, Glasgow, Scotland
November 28: I Finished Michelle Obama’s Becoming. What a wonderful memoir! Thanks, Mrs. Obama, for sharing your life! I haven’t been tracking books read here, but there haven’t been many books that have moved me in this way.
November 20 – 25: Thanksgiving with my family in NC! Post-Thanksgiving celebration in Myrtle Beach, SC. Amazing food, great time :).
November 2rd – 7th: Attended CSCW @ New York City’s Hudson River (Jersey City).
August 18 – 22: Flew to Cusco and traveled the “Sacred Valley of the Inkas”: Sacsayhuamán, Q’Enqo, Moray, Chinchero, and Ollantaytambo. I took the train from Ollantaytambo to Machupicchu and headed to the top of the Ancient Mountain!
August 17: Attended Quinton and Karen’s wedding in Lima, Peru: Congratulations Quinton and Karen!
August 10: Our interactive poster abstracts were accepted to CSCW!
August 9: Our papers, “Making a Living My Way: Necessity-driven Entrepreneurship in Resource-Constrained Communities” and “Supporting New Immigrant Access to Social Capital and Adaptation to a New Country” were conditionally accepted to CSCW 2018 Second Cycle!
July 24 – 27: Trip to Baldwin and Idlewild, MI, for vacation and relaxation!
June 27 – 30: Attended the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, CO, where I met an amazing group of individuals and scholars!
June 23: Attended my nephew and new niece’s wedding in Rock Hill, SC: Congratulations, Xavier and Val!
June 7 – 14: Attended the ACM Designing for Interactive Systems (DIS) conference in Hong Kong. I presented our paper “Designing Future Employment Applications for Underserved Job Seekers: A Speed Dating Study”, which received an honorable mention!
May 18: Presented “Designing for Employability: Envisioning Tools for Low-resource Job Seekers” at Stanford’s HCI Seminar Series in Stanford, CA.
April 20 – 27: Attended the CHI 2018 conference in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Presented “Entrepreneurship and the Socio-Technical Chasm in a Lean Economy”. Awesome presentations were given by Vaishnav Kameswaran and Earnest Wheeler on our work also!
April 8-10: Attended the Computing Community Consortium’s Socio-technical Interventions for Health Disparity Reduction Workshop in New Orleans, LA
April 3 – 4: Attended the NSF-HTF workshop on Emerging Technologies, Racial Equity, and the Future of Work in Amherst, MA.
March 7: Nominated to be a scholar at the Aspen Ideas Festival 2 in Aspen, CO.
March 5: Our DIS paper submission, “Designing Future Employment Applications for Underserved Jobseekers: A Speed Dating Study,” was accepted!
February 27 – March 6: Spring Break / Trip to NC to visit family!
February 12: Traveled to the University of Pittsburgh to serve on Di Lu’s dissertation proposal defense, “Connecting online and offline worlds: the impact of cross-boundary artifacts on hybrid communities.” Congratulations on a successful defense Di!
February 9: Our CHI 2018 submission, “Entrepreneurship and the Socio-Technical Chasm in a Lean Economy,” received an honorable mention!
January 19: My submission with Elle (Yuan) Wang, Non-cognitive Assessments at Scale: MOOCs and Employability, was accepted to LAK 18 – Workshop on Online Learning & Non-cognitive Assessments at Scale!

2017

December 16 – 21: Trip to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Hoover Dam!
December 18: Our project, “Supporting Economic Mobility through Community Mentorship,” was selected to receive funding through the 2017 Community-Academic Research Partnerships Grant Program, Research on Strategies to Prevent and Alleviate Poverty in Michigan ($30,000).
December 7 – 11: CHI PC, Montreal, Québec, Canada
November 22-26: Thanksgiving in Charlotte, NC, with the fam. Thanks again for hosting Xavier and Valerie!
November 16: Our papers “Entrepreneurship and the Socio-Technical Chasm in a Lean Economy,” “Navigating the Job Search as a Low-Resourced Job Seeker”, and “Support for Social and Cultural Capital Development in Real-time Ridesharing Services” were conditionally accepted to CHI 2018!
October 11-12: Invited to and attended the ESRC and NSF International Workshop on “Changing Work, Changing Lives in the new Technological World” in Liverpool, UK.
October 9: Invited to and attended the Learning with MOOCs conference in Austin, Texas as a panelist for the “How are technologies being used to support underserved learners?” panel!
September 13: Our papers “The Sharing Economy in Computing: A Systematic Literature Review” and “Everyday Resilience: Supporting Resilient Strategies among Low Socioeconomic Status Communities” were accepted to CSCW 2018!
September 9: Received the Joan Durrance Community Engagement Award for excellence in building community partnerships to develop successful, sustainable information-related projects that address societal challenges!
August 7: My proposal to NSF CHS: Small: Designing Next Generation Digital Employment and Recruitment Intervention Tools: Identifying Technical Features to Support Underserved Job Seekers in the U.S. was funded (IIS-1717186, $499,729)!
July 20 – July 27: Vancouver, Hope, and Harrison Hotsprings, B.C.!
June 14 – June 18: Attended the Digitization and the Future of Work workshop sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC-Canada) in Ottawa, Canada.
May 12 – 20: Road trip to Colorado Springs (Pikes Peak and the Air Force Academy), Taos, NM, Sante Fe, NM (Georgia O’Keeffe, IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, and lots of New Mexican food), and back to Denver.
May 6-11: Attended CHI in Denver, CO! Co-presented “Uncovering the Values and Constraints of Real-time Ride Sharing for Low-resource Populations” with Vaishnav Kameswaran.
April 13: Gave the talk, “The Challenges and Opportunities for Real-time Ridesharing Services to address Unemployment Barriers among Low-Resourced Populations,” at Northwestern University’s TSB Seminar! Thanks to all the faculty, students, and staff for making this a great visit!
April 7: Gave the talk, “The Challenges and Opportunities for Real-time Ridesharing Services to address Unemployment Barriers among Low-Resourced Populations,” at Carnegie Mellon’s HCII Seminar! Thanks to all the faculty, students, and staff for the fantastic visit back to Pittsburgh!
Article published in March-April issue of acmqueue: Research for Practice: Expert-curated guides to the best of CS research. Technology for Underserved Communities. 2017.
March 22: Happy to have not missed my shot to see the musical Hamilton at the Private Bank Theatre in Chicago!
March 8: Gave the talk, “The Challenges and Opportunities for Real-time Ridesharing Services to address Unemployment Barriers among Low-Resourced Populations,” at the University of Washington’s DUB Seminar! Thanks again, Katie O’Leary for arranging such a great visit!
February 26: Held our workshop, Reflections on Design for Underserved Populations. Thanks again, everyone, for attending, and I’m looking forward to our next steps and future work!
February 25 – March 1: Attended the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Conference in lovely Portland, OR! I miss you Portland. Thanks again to all my new and old friends for a great brunch @ Cadillac Cafe, lunches, and dinners :)!
February 22: Presented “The digital-sharing economy at work: How riders living in transportation-scarce areas of Detroit experience Uber” to the Hope Village Initiative. Thanks, FocusHOPE, for allowing me to share our research and your incredible insights!
February 21: B.Y.O.Device (Hands-on Tech Training) at Eastside Community Network. Provided hands-on tech training (with Joey & Earnest from the Social Innovations group, Desiree and Florence, and Kentaro) to an amazing group of east siders!
February 7: Gave a talk on “Investigating Opportunities for Information and Communication Technologies to Address Employment Barriers of Underserved Populations” at Michigan State University’s Information & Media Seminar Series.
January 5: My proposal with Walter Lasecki was selected to receive a 2016 Junior Faculty Small Grant Competition, Research on Strategies to Prevent and Alleviate Poverty award!
January 4: My proposal with Kentaro Toyama and Joyojeet Pal: “EAGER: Identifying Technical and Non-technical Feature Requirements to Generate Income-Earning Opportunities for Inexperienced Entrepreneurs,” was recommended for support!

2016

December 14: Our paper “Uncovering the Values and Constraints of Real-time Ride Sharing for Low-resource Populations” was conditionally accepted for inclusion at CHI 2017! Special congrats and shouts out to Vaishnav, Linfeng, and Tanya!
November 10: Presented in the Ross School of Business ICOS speaker series on “The sharing economy at work” with Alex Rosenblat at Data & Society. Special thanks to Lindsay Cameron for putting the panel together!
November 8: Presented “Investigating Opportunities for Information and Communication Technologies to Address the Employment Needs of Underserved Populations” at UC Berkeley’s Berkeley Institute of Design (BID). Special thanks to Andrew Head for an exciting visit!
October 31: Our workshop proposal, “Reflections on Design Methods for Underserved Communities,” has been accepted for CSCW 2017! Congrats and shout out to Sheena, Roxana, Aarti, Denise, and Phoebe!
September 6: Congratulations to Joey Hsiao, my Ph.D. student, for having his first, first-authored paper accepted to CSCW 2017! Hsiao, C.Y., Dillahunt, T.R. (2017). People-Nearby Applications: How Newcomers Move Their Relationships Offline and Develop Social and Cultural Capital, CSCW 17 (to appear).
July 21st – July 27: Celebrated birthday week with family and friends. Great visits to Windsor and Amherstburg, Ontario, the Ford Museum, and Greenfield Village!
July 12 – 15: Attended the Microsoft Research Faculty Summit in Redmond, WA!
July 10: Attended Crystal and Hurriyah’s wedding in Queens, NYC
June 28: Awarded an NSF EAGER Award as co-PI with Siqian Shen (PI) and Tanya Rosenblat (co-PI) entitled “Integrated Vehicle -and-Service-Sharing Systems (V3S): Towards Barrier-free Design and Operations for Engaging Underserved Communities”, $149,390!
June 22: Our MIDAS proposal, “Reinventing Public Urban Transportation and Mobility” was funded by U of M ($1.25M). Awesome job Pascal, for bringing us all together and submitting a must-fund proposal!
June 16 – 17: Attended the NSF Broadband 2021 workshop in Arlington, VA.
June 7: Presented work, “Designing for Disadvantaged Job Seekers: Insights from Early Investigations,” at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems conference (DIS) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia!
May 31: Presented work, “Addressing the Employment Needs of Underserved Populations with ICTs,” to GroupLens at the University of Minnesota!
May 15: Took a Detroit Historic Neighborhood Tour hosted by the Southeast Waterfront Neighborhood Association (SWNA).
May 14: Toured the Ford Factory in Dearborn, MI, with UMSI Faculty–all F150s were being manufactured.
May 2-6 Explored the state on the Michigan Road Scholars Tour. Visited notable sites in Lansing (GM Plant and Capitol), Grand Rapids (Network 180, Grand Rapids Alum Club), Big Rapids (Wolverine Worldwide), Chase (Chase Creek Smoke House), Traverse City (the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, Left Foot Charley), Leelanau Peninsula (Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Center), Harbor Springs (Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa, Wycamp Lake), St. Ignace (Carmeuse Lime & Stone, Great Lakes Boat Building School), Hessel (Les Cheneaux Culinary School), Bay City (Old City Hall Restaurant), Detroit (Osburn Neighborhood Alliance, UM Detroit Center, Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation and Belle Isle State Park)!
March 8: Our paper, Designing for Disadvantaged JobSeekers: Insights from Early Investigations, was accepted to the ACM Designing for Interactive Systems (DIS) conference! Awesome work Nishan, Suleman, and Asha! Go SIG!
March 4-18: Travel – Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand
March 1: Moderated the Panel: Does the Sharing Economy do any Good? at the ACM Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) conference 2016 in San Francisco
February 29: Presented “Do Massive Open Online Course Platforms Support Employability?” at the ACM CSCW) conference 2016 in San Francisco
February 25: Presented “Increasing Sociotechnical capital for Employment with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)” at Howard University in Washington, DC. This talk was hosted by Computer Science at HU.
February 22 and 23: Attended the biennial Career Mentoring Workshop offered by the Computing Research Association at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in Arlington, V.A.
January 23: I drove to Flint, MI, to help pass out over 24,000 bottles of water with some awesome kids from the community and Our House. What’s happening in Flint is a tragedy—please keep the fine people of Flint in your thoughts.
January 23: Proposal accepted to the Development Consortium 2016: HCI Across Borders workshop! The proposed workshop paper is called: “Project Boost: Addressing the ’Socio’ in a Socio-Technical System to Improve Income-Earning Opportunities in Urban America”.
January 22: Visited Joe Gappy owner of Prince Valley Market to learn about their free ride home program for customers spending $50 or more in the store. Check it out here. Awesome store, awesome guy, AWESOME bakery! Thanks Joe!
January 7: Attended guest curator Ingrid LaFleur’s Afrofuturism Short Film Series at the DIA
January 1: Participated in Detroit’s Commitment Day 5k run in Novi, MI!

2015

December 19: Selected to participate in the 2016 Michigan Road Scholars Tour, which takes UM faculty on a five-day traveling seminar across Michigan!
December: Invited to moderate the panel submitted to CSCW 2016: “Does the Sharing Economy do any Good?”
Friday, November 6: Invited to interview Paul Chislett on CJAM 99.1. CJAM 99.1FM is a social justice campus/community radio program at the University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario.
August 27: Our paper “If God Gives Me The Chance, I Will Design my Own Phone”: Engaging with Kenyan Mobile Phone Repairers on Their Own Terms” received an honorable mention at UbiComp 2015! This indicates that our paper was among the top 5% of all UbiComp submissions this year!
August 18: Attended Knowledge of the Margins conference held at Michigan State University
August 17: Our paper “Do Massive Open Online Course Platforms Support Employability?” was accepted to CSCW 2016 in San Francisco, CA!
July 25 – August 3, 2015: Attended the Indonesian-American Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium in Makassar, Indonesia.
July 20 – 24, 2015: Attended the 2015 Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems (CSST) Summer Research Institute at The Nature Place, near Colorado Springs, CO.
June 25, 2015: Research mentioned here: http://cacm.acm.org/news/188770-the-filter-bubble-is-it-real-does-it-matter/fulltext. “The Filter Bubble: Is it Real? Does it Matter?” By Tom Geller
May 20, 2015: Our paper “If God Gives Me The Chance, I Will Design my Own Phone”: Engaging with Kenyan Mobile Phone Repairers on Their Own Terms” was accepted to UbiComp 2015 in Osaka, Japan!
May 18, 2015: Selected as a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for 2015! The Kavli program honors young scientists who are considered leaders in their fields and have made significant scientific contributions. Fellows are invited to attend, present, and network at U.S. and international Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia, at which some of the world’s brightest young scientists convene to share the exciting research taking place in their fields.
April 17-24, 2015: Flew to Seoul, Korea, for CHI to co-present “The Promise of the Sharing Economy among Disadvantaged Communities” with Amy Malone.
Some press in Med City News: http://medcitynews.com/2015/03/10-observations-sxsw/!
March 13-15, 2015: Flew to Austin for SXSW- Panelist on the Future of Human-Computer Interaction session.
February 25, 2015: Presented Fostering Social Capital in Economically Distressed Communities at the Focus Hope Village Initiative Leadership meeting in Detroit.
February 2, 2015: Our work-in-progress paper, “Detecting and visualizing filter bubbles in Google and Bing,” was accepted to CHI 2015!
January 26, 2015: Our work-in-progress paper, “Learn with Friends: The Effects of Student Face-to-Face Collaborations on Massive Open Online Course Activities,” was accepted to the Learning at Scale Conference 2015!
January 17, 2015: Attended the Auto Show in Detroit (my first auto show ever)! If you’ve never been, be sure to go at least once!
January 16, 2015: Our paper, “The Promise of the Sharing Economy among Disadvantaged Communities,” was accepted to CHI 2015!

2014

December 11-18, 2014: Seoul, South Korea (CHI PC Meeting & Travel)
November 14-16, 2014: Attended Carnegie Mellon University’s HCII 20th Anniversary conference (happy birthday, HCII)! Presented “Connecting disadvantaged populations to ICTs” to address sustainability issues on the Ph.D. Alumni in Academia panel.
November 5: Our article, “Democratizing Higher Education: Exploring MOOC Use Among Those Who Cannot Afford a Formal Education”, is now available on the IRRODL site (link)!
September 26: Our research was mentioned in a BBC article, “Forget the MBA” by Ronald Alsop!
September 22, 2014: Our article was accepted to The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL): Special Issue: Research into Massive Open Online Courses: “Democratizing Higher Education: Exploring MOOC Use Among Those Who Cannot Afford a Formal Education!”
September 2, 2014: Started Assistant Professorship at the University of Michigan’s School of Information!
June 25-27: Attended a workshop sponsored by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to brainstorm ways to broaden the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM education.
June 15, 2014: Invited to give a keynote for the Pittsburgh Science and Learning Center’s (PSLC’s) professional development workshop at Carnegie Mellon University. Presented work entitled “Unlocking the Hidden Potential of Massive Open Online Courses.”
June 6, 2014: MOOC Research Initiative Final Report entitled “Understanding Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a Pathway for Low-Income Populations,” submitted: http://www.moocresearch.com/reports
May 2014: I took my first trip to the African continent to visit Nairobi and rural Kenya. I also went on my first safari!
Attended CHI 2014 in Toronto, Canada
Invited to be a panelist for the session, “Can you do good and do well? Exploring HCI Careers for Societal Impact”, May 1, 2014, 2-3:20 PM, Room: 715A, Metro Toronto Convention Centre
Attended the Academic Careers Workshop in Evanston, IL, at Northwestern University
Gave a guest talk on Fostering social capital in economically distressed communities at the Technology and Social Behavior group at Northwestern University
Attended Learning at Scale Conference conference in March, Atlanta, Georgia
Attended CSCW 2014 conference of computing in February, Baltimore, MD
Attended Richard Tapia 2014, in February, Seattle, WA
Our WIP paper, “Analyzing employment technologies for economically distressed individuals,” was accepted to CHI! Great job, Ben, Jashanjit, and Jon!

2013

December 9: Our MOOC research receives press in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Paper “Fostering Social Capital in Economically Distressed Communities” accepted to CHI 2014 in Toronto, ON!
Conference Travel: December 4 – 6: MOOC Research Initiative Conference, Arlington, TX
Conference Travel: November 18 – 20: Behavior Energy and Climate Change Conference, Sacramento, CA
October 25: Invited speaker: Proactive Health Informatics Speaker Series and Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics at Indiana University, Bloomington
September 25: Received notification for MOOCs Research Initiative (MRI) grant funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (as PI) to do work entitled, “Understanding Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a Pathway to Employment for Low-Income Populations”! Co-PI: Stephanie Teasley, Award amount: $20,344.
Travel: September 18 – 22 (RIT Future Faculty Career Exploration Program)
September 4: Received an NSF EAGER Award as PI (ID: 1352915) to do work entitled “Identifying Barriers and Opportunities for Building SocioTechnical Capital”! Award amount: $149,942.
Our paper, Understanding factors of successful engagement around energy consumption between and among households, was accepted to CSCW 2014.
Travel: July 2 – 11, 2013 (Italy: Verona, Padova, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Assisi, Rome, Pompei)
Travel: June 5-7, 2013 (Washington, DC)
I attended my hooding ceremony at Carnegie Mellon University on May 18!
Attended Google I/O in San Francisco, CA, May 16-17, 2013
Attended CHI 2013 in Paris, France, from April 27 – May 2.
April 12: Received the first grant as PI to do work entitled “Exploring Downward Mobility among Middle-Income African Americans: Interpretations of Social Mobility and the Impact of Information and Communication Technologies” with Jessica Welburn (Co-PI). Award amount: $7500.
Attended the Building Future Faculty workshop at NCState from April 3rd – April 6th.
Attended the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference in Washington, D.C., in February.
Our paper, “Deep Conservation in Urban India and its Implications for the Design of Conservation Technologies was accepted” to CHI 2013.
In January 2013, I started my postdoctoral fellowship with the University of Michigan’s School of Information with Paul Resnick.
In November 2012, I successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation, “Using Social Technologies to Increase Sharing and Communication around Household Energy Consumption in Low-Income and Rental Communities.”