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 combatting online antisocial behavior, human-AI collaborations to promote internet safety, and facilitating healthy online interactions.

SCUBA is officially a part of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 
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ONGOING PROJECTS

1. Real-time deployments of new human-AI collaboration tools for community moderators (e.g., Crossmod, ConvEx)
2. Design friction as a moderation intervention: Causal effects of "quarantining" on Reddit
3. Measuring and promoting healthy online behavior (e.g., prosocial outcomes in online interactions)
4. Understanding and designing for audio-based (and other non-textual) social platforms
5. Resilience to influxes of bad actors and bad behaviors within online communities
6. Gray areas in online governance: Mismatches in stakeholder expectations

For a full list of our research papers, check out our publications.
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PEOPLE

​Professor: Eshwar Chandrasekharan

PhD: 
Charlotte Lambert, Jackie Chan, Fred Choi, Tanvi Bajpai

Undergraduate:
Anwesa Goswami, Drshika Asher, Clark Lu, Jacqueline Chen; [UM: Aditya Shylesh, Robert Kang, Victor Li]

External collaborators:
​Shagun Jhaver (postdoc@UW -> Assistant Professor@Rutgers University),
Stevie Chancellor (postdoc@Northwestern -> Assistant Professor@University of Minnesota)