Recent News

Congratulations to Dr. Mamtaj Akter on successfully defending her doctoral dissertation entitled, “Leveraging Community Oversight to Promote Mobile Privacy and Security Within Trusted Communities.” Dr. Akter will begin a tenure-track Assistant Professor position next fall in the Computer Science Department at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). We are incredibly...

Congratulations to our director, Dr. Pamela Wisniewski, who has been named to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Science and Technology (ISAT) study group. This prestigious appointment involves assessing future research directions in computer science. Dr. Wisniewski's inclusion in the ISAT group highlights her significant contributions and expertise...

Congratulations to our recent PhD graduate Dr. Alsoubai and her advisor Dr. Pamela Wisniewski for showcasing their work on the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) blog. The blog discusses the challenges youth face in the digital world, focusing on privacy breaches, cyber threats, and the impact of social media...

Congratulations to Dr. Wisniewski for being awarded a Secure and Trustworthy Computing (SaTC) National Science Foundation (NSF) grant entitled, “Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Medium: Using Intelligent Conversational Agents to Empower Adolescents to be Resilient Against Cybergrooming,” under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program (CFDA 47.070). Dr. Wisniewski...

Congratulations to STIR Lab undergraduate students Yiwei Wang, Enya Bullard, and Abbie Chen on presenting their research titled “Designing a Social Media Simulation to Evaluate Online Safety Nudges” at the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Fair, mentored by PhD candidate Zainab Agha. The Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Fair provides an opportunity for our undergraduates to share their work in a...

Congratulations to Xavier Caddle, Jinkyung Park, and Pamela Wisniewski on their recent paper publication at the Future of Information and Communication Conference (FICC). The Paper explores strategies for online youth protection, drawing on interviews with 38 stakeholders in the field. It identifies leveraging AI for risk detection, developing safety tools,...

Warm congratulations to Campbell Headrick, our Master's student, on the successful defense of his thesis, "Youth Discussions of Security and Privacy." With this achievement, Campbell becomes the first lab Master's student to defend his thesis at Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Pamela Wisniewski participated as a key expert in the "Copycat: Social Contagion, Online Viral Behavior, and Youth" webinar hosted by Children and Screens. The webinar aimed to enlighten parents and caregivers on the susceptibility of youth to social contagion, a phenomenon that is intensified by the proliferation of digital...

Congratulations to the STIR Lab researchers and their collaborators on getting five full papers conditionally accepted at CHI 2024. The papers' titles, abstracts, and authors are as follows: "I'm gonna KMS": From Imminent Risk to Youth Joking about Suicide and Self-Harm via Social Media Authors:Naima Samreen Ali, Sarvech Qadir, Ashwaq Alsoubai,...

The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has announced that Dr. Pamela Wisniewski will be joining their Non-Resident Fellows Program. Dr. Wisniewski will join eight other distinguished researchers from diverse organizations and backgrounds, highlighting the far-reaching influence of technology on various facets of everyday life. The Center for Democracy &...

Congratulations to Dr. Pamela Wisniewski who has contributed to a newly published book, titled "Trolley Crash: Approaching Key Metrics for Ethical AI Practitioners, Researchers, and Policy Makers" as one of the chapter authors. She collaborated on the third chapter, "Boiling the Frog: Ethical Leniency due to Prior Exposure to Technology,"...

Congratulations to our Ph.D. candidate Ashwaq Alsoubai for getting accepted into the ELEVATE leadership program at Vanderbilt University next Spring. The ELEVATE program provides a collaborative environment for senior students to explore critical leadership concepts and skills.