Project teams humans and artificial intelligence to scan social media posts for risk data to aid disaster response
When a disaster strikes, social media can be helpful in alerting the public quickly. Virginia Tech professor Chris Zobel is part of a multidisciplinary project on human-artificial intelligence teaming to identify disaster-related risks in social media posts to provide situational awareness for emergency management and disaster response. Besides Zobel, project participants are also researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, Brigham Young University, and George Mason University, as well as members of Maryland’s Montgomery County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). Read more: https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2021/04/pamplin-zobel-cert.html
Professor Hughes Receives an Award for Excellence in Scholarship
The BYU Faculty Women’s Association recognized Professor Amanda Hughes with an award for excellence in Scholarship in 2021.
BYU Information Technology receives $24.5K National Science Foundation RAPID grant to research human-AI teaming in emergency response
BYU IT & Cybersecurity assistant professor Amanda Hughes has been awarded a competitive $24,498 National Science Foundation (NSF) RAPID grant. Her project, titled “Human-AI Teaming for Big Data Analytics to Enhance Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic,” is in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin and George Mason University.
NSF RAPID/Collaborative grant award to study COVID-19
May 2020 - We are proud to announce that our research team received an NSF RAPID/Collaborative grant titled “Human-AI Teaming for Big Data Analytics to Enhance Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.” This project is designed to 1) better understand the process of real-time decisions that digital volunteers make when they rapidly convert social media data into structured codes that machines (Artificial Intelligence algorithms) can understand, and 2) use this knowledge to improve human-machine teaming. We hope to advance understanding of how humans and machines each add unique value to the decision-making process as we try to recognize and respond to patterns that emerge from social media data during disasters like the current pandemic. Our team will also be working with Keri K. Stephens (Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin), Hemant Purohit (Information Science & Technology at George Mason University), and Steve Peterson (Volunteer Coordinator at Montgomery County Community Emergency Response Team). https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2029698