Keynote Speakers

Opening Keynote

Jeff Hancock

The Facebook Study: A Personal Account of Data Science, Ethics and Change

Bio

Jeff Hancock is a Professor in the Departments of Communication and Information Science at Cornell University. He is currently the Chair of the Information Science Department and the co-Director of Cognitive Science. At the Cornell Social Media Lab Professor Hancock and his group work on questions concerned with psychological and interpersonal processes that take place online. The team specializes in using in using computational linguistic analysis to understand how the words we use can reveal psychological and social dynamics, such as deception and credibility, emotional dynamics, intimacy and relationships, and social support. Recently Professor Hancock has begun work on questions around ethics and the intersection of social and data science. Funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense supports his research, which has been frequently featured in the popular media, including the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and the BBC. Dr. Hancock earned his PhD in psychology at Dalhousie University, Canada, and joined Cornell in 2002.

Closing Keynote

Zeynep Tufekci

Algorithms in our Midst: Information, Power and Choice when Software is Everywhere

Bio

Zeynep Tufekci is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill at the School of Information (SILS) with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Sociology. She’s also a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Zeynep has been a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University and taught at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs. She has also been a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Her research revolves around the interaction between technology and social, cultural and political dynamics with particular interested in collective action, civics, algorithms and big data, surveillance, privacy, and sociality. Zeynep believes that academic knowledge is crucial to significant issues facing us and besides carrying out her academic research, she tries to write at the intersection of academic knowledge and accessible and relevant content.