SCUBA: THE SOCIAL COMPUTING LABORATORY
The Social Computing Laboratory (SCUBA) aims to make the internet a safer and more welcoming place by developing new scientific methods and computational tools. Our work broadly intersects with social computing, data science, human-centered AI, and natural language processing.
SCUBA's current research is related to facilitating healthy online interactions and developing new human-AI systems for social computing applications. We actively work with large-scale Internet platforms including Reddit, Twitch, and Facebook, and our research has impacted their efforts to improve online governance.
SCUBA is a part of the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
SCUBA's current research is related to facilitating healthy online interactions and developing new human-AI systems for social computing applications. We actively work with large-scale Internet platforms including Reddit, Twitch, and Facebook, and our research has impacted their efforts to improve online governance.
SCUBA is a part of the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
ONGOING PROJECTS
- Methods to shape user behavior via positive reinforcement, feedback mechanisms, and norm teaching (e.g., efficacy of positive reinforcement on Reddit and YouTube)
- Models to identify desirable behavior online (e.g., quantifying prosocial outcomes in online interactions)
- Computational approaches to help users navigate large-scale online discussions (e.g., ConvEx, Needle, ArgCMV)
- Empirical audits of algorithmically curated social media feeds (e.g., empirical audits of Reddit's r/popular feed)
- Real-time deployment of AI-powered tools for social computing applications (e.g., LLM-Mod, SLM-Mod, MoMoE)
- Gray areas in online governance: Mismatches in stakeholder expectations (e.g., User-Mod Alignment on Reddit)
For a full list of our research papers, check out our publications. For project-related code, check out GitHub.
PEOPLE
Professor: Eshwar Chandrasekharan
PhD:
Undergraduate:
Alumni:
PhD:
MS:
Undergraduate:
Sowmya Pratipati, Tue Do, Aarohi Gupta, Ishq Gupta, Ayaan Shah, Drshika Asher, Ananya Rajagopal, Anwesa Goswami
PhD:
- Charlotte Lambert
- Fred Choi
- Jackie Chan
- Agam Goyal
- Claire Wang
- Yuchen Wu
Undergraduate:
- Yoshee Jain!
- Eunice Mok!
- Sriya Gottiparthi!
Alumni:
PhD:
- Tanvi Bajpai (2021-2025). Thesis: Beyond the Black Box: Towards Bridging Theoretical Computer Science and HCI
MS:
- Omkar Gurjar (2023-2025). Thesis- Distilling Arguments: A Study of Human and LLM Persuasion in the Online Discourse
- Harita Reddy (2021-2023). Thesis- Studying Rule Trajectories in Reddit Communities
- Dominic Jones (2021-2023). Thesis- Measuring Epistemic Trust: Towards a New Lens for Democratic Legitimacy, Misinformation, and Echo Chambers
Undergraduate:
Sowmya Pratipati, Tue Do, Aarohi Gupta, Ishq Gupta, Ayaan Shah, Drshika Asher, Ananya Rajagopal, Anwesa Goswami