News

2020

Nov 2020: Our paper (with Jakita Thomas and Yolanda Rankin) "Real Talk: Saturated Sites of Violence in CS Education" was accepted to SIGCSE 2021. ***This paper won a #1 Best Paper Award for the Computing Education Research Track.***
Oct 2020: Our paper (with Yolanda Rankin and Jakita Thomas) "I Can’t Breathe: Reflections from Black Women in CSCW and HCI" was accepted and presented at CSCW 2020. ***This paper also won a Diversity and Inclusion award.***
Oct 2020: Delighted to co-organize a CSCW 2020 workshop on assets-based design with collaborators from across the country.
July 2020: Our paper (with Nichole Pinkard and Caitlin Martin) "Equitable approaches: opportunities for computational thinking with emphasis on creative production and connections to community" was published in Interactive Learning Environments.
June 2020: Our paper (with Jessa Dickinson, Caitlin Martin, and Nichole Pinkard) "Community Conversations: A Model for Community-Driven Design of Learning Ecosystems with Geospatial Technologies" was accepted at ICLS 2020.
May 2020: Our project (in collaboration with the Chicago Mayor's Office and Northwestern University) launched, which focuses on working with youth-serving organizations to provide meaningful opportunities to Chicago youth. My advisory role on the mayoral initiative is to create an equity-focused framework for data-informed, community conversations about local informal learning infrastructures. I have the pleasure of partnering with Natasha Smith-Walker at Project Exploration on this community-based work in the Austin community.
April 2020: I was awarded a Smart and Connected Communities NSF grant to design data-driven tools and social practices to support a city-wide equitable out-of-school time learning ecosystem in Chicago.

2019

Nov 2019: Our CSCW paper (with Christina Harrington and Anne-Marie Piper) was recognized with a Best Paper award.
Nov 2019: Jessa Dickinson presented our CSCW paper (with Mark Díaz and Chris LeDantec) about designing civic tech for resource constrained communities.
July 2019: I earned tenure and a promotion to associate professor at DePaul University.
June 2019: Our new NSF grant (with Denise Nacu and Nichole Pinkard at Northwestern) began, which focuses on designing a culturally responsive learning ecosystem for non-dominant middle school girls to engage in STEM.

2018

June 2018: We (with Enid Montague) received the CDM Collaborative Grant to support our work on designing sociotechnical systems to address maternal health for underrepresented women.
June 2018: I received the Gerald Paetsch Advising Award for excellence in mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students.
May 2018: I Joined the CSCW 2018 Program Committee.
April 2018: We presented our late-breaking paper, Inclusion of Underserved Residents in City Technology Planning and co-organized a two-day symposium, Computer-Human Interaction Mentoring (CHIMe) 2018 to support upcoming HCI scholars at CHI 2018.
April 2018: I enjoyed giving a research talk to the Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science seniors at Maccalester College.
April 2018: I enjoyed giving a GVU Brownbag talk at Georgia Tech titled, "Taking an Asset-Based Approach to Designing with Residents in Resource-Constrained Communities."
March 2018: We receive grants from Microsoft Research, the National Science Foundation, and ACM to support our CHI Mentoring (CHIMe) Workshop held at CHI 2018.
Feb 2018: I received grants from Robert R. McCormick Foundation and Polk Brothers Foundation to support our work on violence prevention.

2017

Dec 2017: We received a grant from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority to support our research efforts to improve violence prevention.
Jul 2017: I joined the CHI 2018 Program Committee.
Feb 2017: Our CHI paper, "Empowered Participation: How Citizens Use Technology in Local Governance" was awarded a Best Paper award (selected as the top 1% of all CHI submissions).
Feb 2017: I was awarded an NSF EAGER Grant to support my research designing and developing a mobile application to support violence interruption in Chicago.
Jan 2017: Our paper (with Jennifer Burrell), "Empowered Participation: How Citizens Use Technology in Local Governance" was accepted to CHI 2017.
Jan 2017: Our two book chapters about our Digital Youth Divas program were published in the new book, "Moving Students of Color from Consumers to Producers of Technology."
Jan 2017: I am on research leave! I am looking forward to connecting with colleagues and new collaborators!

2016

Dec 2016: I joined the CHI 2017 Program Committee.
Nov 2016: We will be hosting a workshop, "Reflection on Design Methods for Underserved Communities" at CSCW 2017.
Sept 2016: Our paper (with Aarti Israni and Chè Smith), "Snitches, Trolls, and Social Norms: Unpacking Perceptions of Social Media Use for Crime Prevention" was accepted to CSCW 2017.
June 2016: I throughly enjoyed sharing my work with the amazing people at CSST in Stevenson, WA.
May 2016: We presented our late-breaking paper, "'That Neighborhood is Sketchy!': Examining Online Conversations about Social Disorder in Transitioning Neighborhoods." at CHI 2016.
Mar 2016: Emily Ryou presented our paper, "Storytelling with Data: Examining the Use of Data by Non-Profit Organizations" at CSCW 2016.
Feb 2016: Our late-breaking paper, "'That Neighborhood is Sketchy!': Examining Online Conversations about Social Disorder in Transitioning Neighborhoods." was accepted to CHI 2016.
Jan 2016: Digital Youth Divas is starting a new Saturday program and our PI Dr. Nichole Pinkard was on You & Me.

2015

Dec 2015: I received a university research grant for my work, "Digital Connectedness in Chicago Neighborhoods."
Aug 2015: Our paper (with Emily Ryou and colleagues from the Institute for Housing Studies) "Storytelling with Data: Examining the Use of Data by Non-Profit Organizations" was accepted to CSCW 2016.
June 2015: I will be on leave for the next few months.
Mar 2015: I presented my paper, "Engaging Around Neighborhood Issues: How Online Communication Affects Offline Behavior" at CSCW 2015.
Mar 2015: Our workshop Information Technology and City Life was held at CSCW 2015.
Jan 2015: Our paper, "The New Political Voice of Young Americans: Understanding Youth Civic Engagement" (with Molly Metzger and colleagues) was published in the Journal for Education, Citizenship, and Social Justice.

2014

Sept 2014: We (with Nichole Pinkard) were awarded a three-year $1.2 million NSF grant to support STEM learning amongst middle school girls using narratives and communities. See a short video about our project, Digital Divas.
Sept 2014: I received a Irwin W. Stean Center Community-based Research Faculty Fellowship.
Jul 2014: Janine Spears presented our paper, "'I have nothing to hide; thus nothing to fear': Defining a Framework for Examining the 'Nothing to Hide' Persona" at the Workshop on Privacy Personas and Segmentation at SOUPS 2014.
Feb 2014: I presented our WIP paper, "Differences in Technology Use to Support Community Crime Prevention" at CSCW 2014.
Jan 2014: My paper, "Community, Group and Individual: A Framework for Designing Community Technologies" was published in the Journal of Community Informatics.

2013

Nov 2013: My article, "Empowerment Through Community Crime Prevention Technologies" was published in ACM Interactions.
Sept 2013: I successfully defeneded my dissertation, "Digital Crime Prevention: Investigating How Communities Use Technology to Address Crime."
Sept 2013: I started my new position as Assistant Professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University.
Apr 2013: I presented my paper, "Protecting the Home: Exploring the Roles of Technology and Citizen Activism From A Burglar's Perspective" at CHI 2013.
Jan 2013: My paper, "Protecting the Home: Exploring the Roles of Technology and Citizen Activism From A Burglar's Perspective" was accepted to CHI 2013.
Dec 2012: My article, "Crime Prevention Technologies in Low-Income Communities: Using Collaborative Technology as a Grassroots Effort to Reduce Violent Crime in Chicago" was recently published in a special issue of XRDS Winter 2012.

2012

Jun 2012: I received two grants to support my dissertation work.
May 2012: I presented our paper, "Examining Technology That Supports Community Policing" (with Dan Lewis) as well as my dissertation work at CHI 2012 in Austin, TX.
Apr 2012: I successfully defended my dissertation proposal.
Jan 2012: Our paper, "Examining Technology That Supports Community Policing" (with Dan Lewis) was accepted to CHI 2012.

2011

Dec 2011: I will present my dissertation research, "Examining and Designing Community Policing Technology" in the Doctoral Consortium at CHI 2012.
Nov 2011: Our paper, "Digitalizing Crime Prevention Theory: How Technology Affects Victim and Offender Behavior" (with Dan Lewis) was accepted to the International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory.
Sept 2011: I was invited to present my dissertation research on "Understanding Crime, Technology, and Communities" at the National Science Foundation.
Jul 2011: I presented my dissertation research in the Doctoral Consortium at the ACM Communities and Technologies Conference in Brisbane, Australia.
Jun 2011: I received a scholarship to attend the CRA-W Mentoring Workshop in San Jose, CA.
Jun 2011: I presented our paper, "Digitalizing Crime Prevention Theory: How Technology Affects Victim and Offender Behavior" (with Dan Lewis) at the Annual Law and Society Conference in San Francisco, CA.
Feb 2011: Our paper, "Crowdsourcing and Creativity" (with Mira Dontcheva and Liz Gerber) was accepted to the Crowdsourcing and Human Computation workshop at CHI 2011.
Jan 2011: Our paper, "Affective Computational Priming and Creativity" (with Mira Dontcheva and Liz Gerber) was accepted to CHI 2011.

2010

Dec 2010: My research was featured on Dot Diva.
Nov 2010: I presented a poster and workshop paper at GROUP 2010.
Oct 2010: My paper, "Exploring the Role of Technology in Family Communication About Safety" was accepted to the Connecting Families workshop at GROUP 2010.
Oct 2010: I returned from a summer internship at Adobe where I had the pleasure of working with Mira Dontcheva.
Sept 2010: My poster, "R U OK?:Increasing Perceptions of Safety and Community through Social Networks" was accepted to GROUP 2010.
Aug 2010: I presented our paper at ICIC 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
June 2010: I began my internship at Adobe in San Francisco, CA.
May 2010: Our paper, Using Virtual Interactions to Explore Leadership and Collaboration in Globally Distributed Teams (with Jason Ellis and Wendy Kellogg from IBM Research), was accepted to the 2010 International Conference on Intercultural Collaboration.
April 2010: I received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
April 2010: I presented a poster, "Embedding Power Primes in Mobile Devices," (with Liz Gerber and Mira Dontcheva) at CHI 2010.
March 2010: I accepted an internship with Adobe working with Mira Dontcheva.
February 2010: I presented my work with Liz Gerber on "The Role of Leisure Activities on Designers and their Paid Work" at the 2010 International Conference on Design Principles and Practices.
Jan 2010: Our patent, "Assistant for Manually Proofreading Text Documents" was accepted by the US Patent Office.

2009

May 2009: I am a 2009 Google Anita Borg Scholarship recipient.
May 2009: I received Honorable Mention for the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowship.