Newsletter

July 2008

In this issue:

EDITORIAL

Welcome to summer and the July edition of the Center for Technology & Social Behavior (CTSB) newsletter!

This month we spotlight CTSB faculty affiliate Daniel Diermeier and first year Ph.D. student Brian Keegan. The CTSB staff spotlight also turns to CTSB Research Scientist and newsletter editor, Alastair Gill. In addition, we feature details of our new-look summer first Friday event, Thank CTSB It's Friday.

We hope that you find the newsletter a useful resource for information about other CTSB affiliates, forthcoming conference and grant deadlines, as well as reading groups and other activities. Please let us know if you would like to publicize any news, achievements or announcements in the newsletter. CTSB newsletter editor, Alastair Gill <alastair [at] northwestern.edu>, would also like to know of any resources or employment opportunities for inclusion.

Until next month, enjoy the newsletter and the beginning of summer, and we hope to see you at one of the CTSB events.

-- Justine Cassell (Director, CTSB) and Alastair Gill (Research Scientist, CTSB)

EVENTS

Upcoming CTSB events to mark in your calendar:

Colloquium Series

We are currently putting together the exciting CTSB Colloquium Series for 08-09, and we will announce the full program soon. In the meantime, to whet your appetite, we can say that the first speaker in the 08-09 series will be Jonathan Grudin, from Microsoft, speaking in late September. Please check the CTSB colloquium page for announcements and details of previous talks and details of upcoming talks as they become available.

Thank CTSB it's Friday!

After a great lunchtime event in June, we will be carrying on the format into July with our regular first Friday event, Thank CTSB It's Friday (TCIF). Please join us for a nutritious (well, if not nutritious, at the very least very tasty) lunch (12-2pm) next Friday, July 11 (event displaced a week since the first Friday of the month is the 4th of July) in the CTSB meeting room (2-431, Frances Searle Building).

Please join us for the usual good food, refreshment and conversation. If you have specific ideas of activities you would like to see, please get in touch with Alastair Gill <alastair [at] northwestern.edu>.

SPOTLIGHTS

Faculty Spotlight: Daniel Diermeier

Daniel Diermeier is the IBM Distinguished Professor of Regulation and Competitive Practice, Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, and Professor of Political Science, all at Northwestern University. He is also the director of the Ford Motor Company Center for Global Citizenship, and was the founding director of the Social Enterprise at Kellogg program (SEEK) and the founding co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). In his spare time, Professor Diermeier is a co-creator and academic director of the CEO Perspective Program, a joint venture between the Kellogg School of Management and the Corporate Leadership Center, and Kellogg's most senior executive education program.

Professor Diermeier's teaching and research focuses on integrated strategy, the interaction of business and politics, crisis leadership, reputation management and strategic aspects of corporate social responsibility. His work has been published in numerous academic journals in management, economics, and political science and has been featured globally in numerous media outlets. More information about Professor Diermeier can be found on his webpage.

Student Spotlight: Brian Keegan

Brian Keegan is a first year Ph.D. student in the Media, Technology, and Society program and is advised by Professor Darren Gergle. Brian received his bachelors degrees in Mechanical Engineering, and Science and Technology studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. He spent a year conducting oral history interviews with a variety of members of the MIT faculty and administration before coming to Northwestern. He enjoys contributing to Wikipedia, playing video games, photography, scuba diving, traveling, and discussing philosophy and politics.

Brian's research focuses on the ways in which communities employ and reappropriate the affordances and features of new and online media. He is currently working on a project examining the collaborative dynamics of breaking news coverage on Wikipedia, as well as studying consensus-formation as it relate to outcomes in peer-review processes on Wikipedia. In addition, Brian is interested in the studying the interactions between communities within online multiplayer games. In that context Brian is working with Professor Noshir Contractor and his SONIC team to analyze social networks of players in large online multiplayer games. He hopes to leverage this research towards investigating how covert networks of deviant players adapt their practices and coevolve with the restrictions imposed by game developers.

Staff Spotlight: Alastair Gill

Aside from being the editor of the CTSB Newsletter, Alastair Gill is a Post-doctoral Research Scientist at the Center for Technology and Social Behavior, working with Professors Justine Cassell and Darren Gergle. Prior to joining Northwestern in March 2007, Alastair was the Faber Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Laboratory for the Experimental Study of Learning and Development (LEAD-CNRS), University of Burgundy, France (with Professor Robert French). Alastair recieved his Ph.D. in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh in 2004 (advised by Professor Jon Oberlander), which he took following the Edinburgh M.Sc. program in Cognitive Science and Natural Language. His B.A. was in English Language and Literature.

Alastair's research examines the interaction of technology with the social processes of communication. In particular, his work focuses on language processes in the expression and perception of characteristics such as personality, emotion, trust and group formation. This strongly interdisciplinary work has led to publications in venues ranging from Personality and Individual Differences and Discourse Processes, to the ACM's CHI and CSCW conferences. Additionally his research focusing on corpus and computational linguistics techniques has led to a chapter in the forthcoming book, Advanced Methods for Behavioral Research on the Internet (APA Publications). His research has been covered by the press, including the BBC, Guardian and Times Higher Education Supplement. When opportunities permit, Alastair enjoys spending time in the mountains and traveling. More information about Alastair and his research can be found on his webpage.

Faculty News Roundup

Daniel Diermeier's (Kellogg) paper "The Pros and Cons of Dyadic Side Conversations in Small Groups: The Impact of Group Norms and Task Type" (with Roderick Swaab, Katherine Phillips, and Victoria Husted Medvec) appears in the current issue of Small Group Research.

Wendi Gardner's (Psychology) paper "Love Makes You Real: Favorite Television Characters Are Perceived as "Real" in a Social Facilitation Paradigm" appears in the current issue of Social Cognition (with Megan L. Knowles).

Jason Hartline (EECS, Kellogg) presented the paper "Optimal Mechanism Design and Money Burning" (with Tim Roughgarden) at the recent ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, in Victoria, BC, Canda.

Jennifer Richeson (Psychology, African American Studies) and Sophie Trawalter have published an article entitled "Let's Talk About Race, Baby! When Whites' and Blacks' Interracial Contact Experiences Diverge" in the July edition of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Jack Tumblin (EECS) will be presenting two courses at SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles in August. The courses are: "Advanced Topics in Computational Photography" and "A Gentle Introduction to the Bilateral Filter and its Applications".

Uri Willensky (Learning Sciences) had several papers at the recent International Conference for the Learning Sciences in Utrecht, the Netherlands, including "On Learning Electricity with Multi-agent Based Computational Models (NIELS)", with graduate student Pratim Sengupta.

Funding Opportunities

Note: the following list is not exhaustive. You can help by alerting us to relevant opportunities.

NSF - Communicating Research to Public Audiences - This program is a component of the Informal Science Education program (ISE) in the Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education. ISE projects provide rich and stimulating contexts and experiences for individuals of all ages, interests, and backgrounds to increase their appreciation for, and understanding of, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in out-of-school settings. Requests for up to $75,000 will be considered to support projects that communicate to public audiences the process and results of current research that is being supported by any NSF directorate through informal science education activities, such as media presentations, exhibits, or youth-based activities. The purpose of these efforts is to disseminate research results, research in progress, or research methods. Proposals are due anytime, but should be submitted at least 6 months before intended start date.

Skoll Foundation: Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship - The awards support social entrepreneurs whose work has the potential for large-scale influence on critical challenges of our time: environmental sustainability, health, tolerance and human rights, institutional responsibility, economic and social equity, and peace and security. These issues are at the heart of the foundation's vision of empowering people to create a peaceful, prosperous, sustainable world. Within these issues, they are particularly interested in applications from social entrepreneurs working in five critical sub-issue areas that threaten the survival of humanity - climate change, nuclear proliferation, global pandemics, conflict in the Middle East and water scarcity. Potential applicants should take the online quiz to determine eligibility. The next deadline is August 5.

DARPA - Computer Science Study Group (CSSG) - The CSSG program is designed to apidly identify ideas in the field of computer science that will provide revolutionary advances, rather than incremental benefit, to DoD. The program's first phase consists of both a series of briefings and visits to a variety of military sites and facilities over the course of a 12-month period, as well as individual research programs. For successful participants, host institutions will receive grants or other assistance instruments totaling up to $100,000 to support participant travel expenses for Phase I meetings and research that is consistent and synergistic with the activities and discussions. Participants must be junior faculty members at a U.S. institution of higher learning and be eligible to receive a U.S. SECRET security clearance. They also should be no more than seven years beyond their doctoral degree, with demonstrated exceptional potential for world-class contributions to the field of computer science. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the government's needs are eligible to submit proposals, due August 11.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation General Program Grants - The foundation program is devoted to strengthening American democratic capitalism and the institutions, principles, and values that sustain and nurture it. Its programs support limited, competent government; a dynamic marketplace for economic, intellectual, and cultural activity; and a vigorous defense, at home and abroad, of American ideas and institutions. In addition, recognizing that responsible self-government depends on enlightened citizens and informed public opinion, the Foundation supports scholarly studies and academic achievement. At present, the Foundation aims to encourage projects that focus on cultivating a renewed, healthier, and more vigorous sense of citizenship among the American people, and among peoples of other nations, as well. Before application, interested parties should write a letter of inquiry to describe the proposed project. Applicants may then be invited to submit a formal proposal (next deadline September 1).

Sloan Research Fellowships - The fellowships provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars, often in their first appointments to university faculties, who were endeavoring to set up laboratories and establish their independent research projects with little or no outside support. Candidates are required to hold the Ph.D. in chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, economics, neuroscience or computational and evolutionary molecular biology, or in a related interdisciplinary field, and must be members of the regular faculty (i.e., tenure track) of a college or university in the United States or Canada. They generally may be no more than six years since completion of their Ph.D. Candidates cannot aply directly and should nominated by department heads or other senior researchers. Nominations are due by September 15 for awards to begin the following September.

NSF - CISE Computing Research Infrastructure (CRI) The program drives discovery and learning in the computing disciplines by supporting the creation, enhancement and operation of world-class computing research infrastructure. Further, through the CRI program CISE seeks to ensure that individuals from a diverse range of academic institutions, including minority-serving and predominantly undergraduate institutions, have access to such infrastructure. Two types of awards are supported: Institutional Infrastructure awards support either the creation of new computing research infrastructure or the enhancement of existing computing research infrastructure to enable world-class research and education opportunities at the awardee and collaborating institutions. Community Infrastructure awards support the planning for computing research infrastructure, or the creation of new computing infrastructure, or the enhancement of existing computing research infrastructure to enable world-class research and education opportunities for broadly-based communities of researchers and educators that extend well beyond the awardee institutions. Deadline for submissions September 22 (pre-proposal not required).

CTSB Exploration Grants

A further reminder about the CTSB "exploration grants" program. Any interdisciplinary project qualifies. In particular, we encourage faculty and graduate students to collaborate across departments on projects that might potentially lead to larger grant proposals. We are particularly interested in supporting the hire of undergraduates as a part of these collaborative teams. If you are interested, please contact Justine Cassell <justine [at] northwestern.edu>.

Conference Submission Deadlines

AFFINE 2008 1st Workshop on Affective Interaction in Natural Environments Chania, Crete, Greece (October 24), post-conference workshop of the Tenth International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces (ICMI 2008). Submission deadline for 2 page abstracts is July 7.

SSM 2008 Workshop on Search in Social Media Napa Valley, California (October 30), held in conjunction with CIKM 2008. Submission deadline for papers is July 20.

BPCS 2009 Bi-directional Perspectives in the Cognitive Sciences Marburg, Germany (February 27-March 1, 2009). Submission deadline for abstracts is August 1.

SLT 08 2nd IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop Goa, India (December 15-18). Submission deadline for papers is August 8.

DGfS 2009-AG3 Production-comprehension asymmetries in child language workshop Osnabrueck, Germany (March 3-6, 2009) in conjunciton with DGfS 2009. Submission deadline for abstracts is August 20.

Reading Groups

If you would like to advertise a reading group, let Alastair <alastair [at] northwestern.edu> know. 

Currently the Autism Reading Group meets on Fridays at 3pm in the CTSB (Frances Searle, room 2-431). This month's meetings will take place on July 18. If you would like to join the group, please contact Alastair.

The Grounding Reading Group will be taking a break over the summer - please contact Kino Aguilar <kino [at] northwestern.edu> for details of the next meeting.

The Children's Collaborative Problem Solving Reading Group is being organized to help us better understand children's cognitive and behavioral processes in the context of collaborative peer problem solving. Meeting time and place are yet to be confirmed, but anyone interested in participating in the group should email Francisco Iacobelli <f-iacobelli [at] northwestern.edu>.

Employment Opportunities

If you would like to advertise any kind of job openings within your research group or lab, then please contact Alastair Gill <alastair [at] northwestern.edu>, providing a brief description of the position(s) available, and any skills / experience required.