Recent News

Congratulations to the STIR Lab’s Teenovate team in obtaining grant funding for supporting the development of a Youth Advisory Board! The grant was created by the Social Media Adolescent Health Research Team (SMAHRT) within the Technology and Adolecent Mental Wellness

Congratulations to Dr. Wisniewski and co-authors (Turki Alelyani, Arup Kumar Ghosh, Larry Moralez, Shion Guha) for publishing a chapter in recently released book, “Young People and Social Media: Contemporary Children’s Digital Culture”. The book covers a vast array of ideas

MOSafely: Building An Open-Source HCAI Community To Make The Internet A Safer Place For Youth STIR Lab students Xavier Caddle and Afsaneh Razi are leading the MOSafely Workshop at CSCW, in collaboration with students from Georgia Tech and Boston University.

Congratulations to the MOSafely Senior Design Team for completing their Senior Design Project! The team made up of Natalie Larkin, Omar Kalam, James Zhou, Abdulrahman Al Sumaih, and Micah Renfrow successfully presented their year long assignment under the guidance of

Congratulations to the Senior Design Team for delivering their final presentation on MiSu project. They designed and developed the MiSu v2, an innovative mobile app that allows smart homeowners to share limited control access to their smart home devices with

Dr. Wisniewski was given the honor of speaking at the Jenny Lin Foundation on the topic of cyber safety and protecting children online. The Jenny Lin foundation is a non profit organization born out the tragic murder of Jenny Lin

This past weekend, PhD Candidate Karla Badillo-Urquiola and Dr. Pamela Wisniewski, alongside their collaborators, held a workshop addressing Justice-Centered Design Engagements with Children and Teens. Congratulations on a successful and thought provoking workshop! Shout-out to STIR Lab members Afsaneh Razi, Neeraj

MOSafely, a project supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been accepted in the the UCF I-Corp Summer Cohort. MOSafely is an open-source community that leverages evidence-based research, data, and Artificial Intelligence to help youth and young adults engage more safely

Congratulations to STIR Lab Senior Design Team for winning the “Best in Show” Award in the Senior Design Showcase! The Senior Design Team members Max Huebler, Mujahid Jaffer, Jody Kocis, Mary McIntosh and Ian Vickers received the highest award in the competition

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