Recent News

Congratulations to STIR lab student Ashwaq Alsoubai on passing her Qualifying Review (QR) and Candidacy Examination for PhD in Computer Science this Spring! The Qualifying Review and Candidacy Examination are two important milestones in the PhD program in which the

Congratulations to Ph.D. candidate Karla Badillo-Urquiola on receiving the Gary Marsden Travel Award to attend CHI! The Gary Marsden Travel Awards aim to support undergraduate and graduate students, as well as early-career researchers in attending HCI conferences, events, and (for early-career researchers)

Congratulations to STIR Lab student Denielle Abaquita on winning the SURE Poster Judge’s Choice Award with a scholarship of $500! Denielle’s poster is based on his undergraduate honors thesis, titled “Understanding the Challenges Child Welfare Workers Encounter Related to Promoting

Join Dr. Butler as he speaks with Dr. Candice Bridge, Dr. Pamela Wisniewski & Dr. Nazanin Rahnavard regarding matters of diversity. 

Congratulations to Dr. Pamela Wisniewski on contributing to an article for the Children and Screens newsletter, about balancing the use of parental controls, monitoring apps and media plans to support healthy digital media use within families. The article is linked

Congratulations to Dr. Pamela Wisniewski on receiving the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) Excellence in Research Award at the Assistant Professor level. The college awarded Dr. Wisniewski for her outstanding contributions in research and commitment to excellence in scholarly and

This year the STIR Lab is proud to have multiple students participating in the Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE). Each student is assigned to create a poster that displays research and information pertaining to their field of interest. This

Congratulations to Dr. Pamela Wisniewski who was honored by UCF Faculty Excellence for Women’s History Month for her impact on campus and in the community. Being a mentor and advisor for eight PhD students and over thirty undergraduate students, including

Congratulations to STIR Lab student Tara Rutkowski on successfully defending her Honors Undergraduate Thesis! Tara’s thesis, titled “Family Communication: Examining the Differing Perceptions of Parents and Teens Regarding Online Safety Communication” presents a statistical analysis discovering what factors impact a

Congratulations to STIR Lab graduate and alumnus Irina Lediaeva on starting a new job as a User Experience Researcher at Globus.ai! Globus.ai is a Norwegian company that empowers people to do the work they love, while maximizing their potential by matching

The STIR Lab is happy to announce the joining of 33 new and returning undergraduate and 2 Masters students in Spring 2021 who will be actively participating in several ongoing adolescent online safety research at the lab. The following undergrads

Congratulations to Dr. Pamela Wisniewski for taking on the post of Associate Chair of the Information Technology program at UCF. Dr. Wisniewski brings her work experience and academic training to the IT degree program, which seeks to prepare graduates for

Dr. Wisniewski was recently featured on an episode of “The Philosophy of Now” podcast, created by ROOTS Media, which centers around conversations with thought leaders and innovators to learn about the journeys in their respective fields and what their philosophy

Congratulations to STIR lab student Zainab Agha on passing her Qualifying Review (QR) for PhD in Computer Science this Fall. The Qualifying Review is an important milestone in the PhD program in which the Graduate Committee evaluates the research and

Congratulations to STIR Lab student Arianna Davis on successfully defending her Honors Undergraduate Thesis! Arianna’s thesis, titled “Co-designing “Teenovate”: An Intergenerational Online Safety Team”, presents the results of a study conducted with teenagers to design a long-term participatory design program

Congratulations to STIR Lab student Denielle Abaquita on successfully defending his Honors Undergraduate Thesis! Denielle’s thesis, titled “Understanding the Challenges Child Welfare Workers Encounter Related to the Online Safety of Foster Youth”, delves into how foster care case managers work

Congratulations to STIR Lab undergraduate student Denielle Abaquita on accepting a Summer 2021 internship at Facebook! This 12 week internship will see Denielle working on projects or features for one of Facebook’s main products. Excited for next year, Denielle had

As the Fall semester begins to wrap up, the STIR Lab must unfortunately say goodbye to one of our best, Dr. Heidi Hartikainen. Heidi will be ending her postdoc with Dr. Wisniewski and will return Finland, to pursue a new

Dr. Wisniewski and other members of the ACM FCA (Future of Computing Academy) recently published the early results of an online survey which asked early-career computing professionals about their experiences with many aspects of remote work, such as productivity, mental

The UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science has established a new Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Task Force, whose mission will be to “identify and implement actionable strategies to transform the culture of CECS into one that celebrates equity, diversity,

Congratulations to our STIR Lab authors on the acceptance of 2 full papers to the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Workshop on Collective Organizing and Social Responsibility (CSCW 2020)! Citations and Abstracts for the accepted papers are listed below: Badillo-Urquiola,

The STIR Lab recently attended 2 workshops at CSCW 2020, and had position papers accepted to both as part of the conference. Congratulations to the STIR Lab students and Dr. Wisniewski! The paper citations and abstracts are listed below: Agha,

Congratulations to STIR Lab members Heidi Hartikainen, Afsaneh Razi, Ashwaq Alsoubai, and Zainab Agha on attending this year’s Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration. Both Zainab Agha and Afsaneh Razi attended as recipients of a Grace Hopper Scholarship, while Ashwaq Alsoubai and

Congratulations to Dr. Wisniewksi on co-authoring an article recently published in Oxford’s Journal of Cybersecurity. The article, titled “Predicting smartphone location-sharing decisions through self-reflection on past privacy behavior” examines the implications of how and when smartphone users share their location

Congratulations to Dr. Wisniewski and Ph.D. candidate Karla Badillo-Urquiola on co-authoring an article soon to be published in ACM’s Journal of Transactions on Social Computing. The article, titled, “Happiness and Fear: Using Emotions as a Lens to Disentangle How Users

One of the STIR Lab’s recent graduates, Zaina Aljallad, was recently featured on the Computing Research Association’s Undergrad Research Highlights. “Thanks in part to a supportive lab environment, Zaina thrived as a Middle Eastern woman in CS research. “I feel

The STIR Lab welcomes a new semester and two new Ph.D. students! Mamtaj Akter and Ashwaq Soubai have joined the lab and we are excited to have them as both our graduate and undergraduate students begin another Fall of work

Congratulations to Ph.D. candidate Karla Badillo-Urquiola who recently completed her coursework to receive the graduate certificate in Advanced Quantitative Methodologies in Educational and Human Sciences from the Department of Learning Sciences and Education Research at UCF. This certificate provides advanced