What is the best way to spend a Fall Break? For me it is being at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters and working with amazing scholars, practitioners, diplomats, members of the civil society, and non-profits to chart considerations for loneliness and social connection!

Last week I attended an White House Office of Science & Technology Policy panel on youth online safety, mental health, and pervasive data. It was held in the "Secretary of War Room." At first, the location seemed odd, but maybe youth online safety is indeed a topic that deserves to be discussed in such a room? :)

We kicked off day 1 of the Summit on Responsible Computing, AI, and Society today with a fantastic keynote on the future of LLM agents, their benefits and risks. Attendance is free if you are in the area.

Online disclosures of sensitive life experiences can be liberating, even therapeutic. But platform design and algorithms may result in the muting of such disclosures. For gender-based violence, what can we do to prevent such harms? To know, check out our upcoming #CSCW2024 paper!

Are GBV survivors' online challenges similar to offline when sharing experiences? SocWeB researchers Jay Foriest, Shravika Mittal, and Munmun De Choudhury, PhD and collaborators Kirsten Bray and Anh-Ton, studied Reddit users' experiences using mixed-methods approach. See findings at #CSCW2024!

Timely #CSCW2024 SIG on an incredibly important topic — the future of conducting research with social media data. I hope if you are there, you will attend; we would love to hear from you!

I love you all so much. I will keep telling you I love you over the coming seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.💖 On Tuesday, tears cascaded down my face as a parent and I talked on the phone and her abject fear came through as she asked, “What do we do?”

Congratulations @jcforiest, Shravika Mittal, & Munmun De Choudhury, PhD of SocWeb on being awarded the DEI recognition at #CSCW24 - taking an inclusive definition of GBV highlights experiences of gender minorities whom face disparate risks of violence on & offline. doi.org/10.1145/3686940

I am in Costa Rica and excited to present our #CSCW2024 paper on trauma-informed practices for working with youth in HCI research. Ashwaq Alsoubai, Ph.D. Pamela Wisniewski Munmun De Choudhury, PhD John S. Seberger, Nurun Naher. dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/36…

Don't miss our panel on (Un)designing AI for Mental & Spiritual Wellbeing Tuesday evening at #CSCW2024, with panelists Munmun De Choudhury, PhD, Diana, Rev. George Handzo (a preeminent spiritual care expert with 150+ papers), and myself, moderated by Jingjin Li.

👋Excited to be at #CSCW2024! Let’s connect to discuss human-AI interaction in mental health. I'll be presenting the final piece of my dissertation on Tuesday at 2:30 in Guanacaste 2. (Munmun De Choudhury, PhD Sachin Pendse Michael Birnbaum Hayoung, Nathaniel, and Gregory) dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/36…

Extended SocWeB Lab at Georgia Tech members, past and present, at #cscw2024!

Couldn't be more proud of Jiawei Zhou for being named a 2024 Foley Scholar! Her PhD journey has been a story of resilience and perseverence, and what a delight to see your advisees intellectually grow. At SocWeB Lab at Georgia Tech we can't wait to see what's next for you!

Should and can we adopt a lived experience-aware approach to AI alignment? To learn why and how, please look at our new paper led by Mohit Chandra!

Good news is sparse in these times, but couldn’t be more proud of advisee and SocWeB Lab at Georgia Tech alum Koustuv Saha for winning this year’s #ICWSM Adamic-Glance Award!! Rewards of the academic job!! Congratulations and so very well deserved Koustuv Saha!!

LIVE: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ remarks at the launch of the WHO Commission on Social Connection report x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

Loneliness can affect anyone, anywhere; it’s a public health issue. After year and half of work on the Technical Advisory Group of World Health Organization (WHO)'s Commission for Social Connection, couldn't be more pleased to see our report launch happening now! Tune in here: tinyurl.com/WHOSocialConne…

For the first time in its 78-year history, the World Health Assembly has called on govts to adopt national strategies on social connection. In our role advising the World Health Organization (WHO) on a newly launched report on the topic, we provide suggestions for concrete interventions #PowerOfConnection

Such exciting news, and couldn’t be happier for SocWeB Lab at Georgia Tech alum Vedant Das Swain!!