EREA Mentors, Mentees, and Projects for Academic Year 2025-2026
Moya Bailey/Angela Stanley (Comm Studies) will mentor Dana Kim and Namara Lwansa in the Digital Apothecary Lab, a hybrid digital and physical lab dedicated to combining ancient and new technologies in an effort to produce processes and projects that aid those most marginalized in society. It is a place for applied research that goes beyond theory.
Noshir Contractor/Cecilia Huang (Comm Studies) will mentor Harry Chen and Jae Choi on the Human AI Teaming (HAT) project, at the SONIC (Science of Networks in Communities) Research Group. This project aims to collect new data and analyze existing data to study human-AI collaboration in small teams of multiple humans and artificial intelligence agents. Experiments will be conducted to explore the social dynamics and effectiveness of human-AI teamwork. Additionally, we validate fine-tuned LLMs before integrating them into Human-AI teams. We validate the LLM’s outputs to ensure they align with our research questions and resemble human-generated outputs. The position will entail: 1) Working with Qualtrics to update surveys, extract data, and check the validity of responses; 2) Validating interactions generated by LLMs of AI teammates; 3) Organizing materials and coordinating with members of the research team and PIs.
Nicholas Diakopoulos/Nicholas Hagar (Comm Studies) will mentor Ava Milukas on a project titled Benchmarking LLMs for Investigative Journalism. This research involves assisting in building a benchmark to test how accurately large language models answer journalists’ questions on massive document dumps. The student will collect and curate newsworthy datasets, design and run evaluation tasks with our team, and score model outputs. This project is ideal for students interested in investigative journalism, NLP, and hands-on research methods and impact.
Susan Dun (Comm Studies) will mentor Corey Schack and Zofia Poczatek on a project titled Using Visual Communication to Increase Comprehension of Informed Consent Forms in Human Subjects Research. This project aims to support ongoing efforts to increase underrepresented groups’ participation in research by using visual communication techniques to improve understanding of informed consent forms. It involves developing AI generated images that depict common concepts from consent forms to assess whether or not they increase their comprehension and believability. It also entails running a 2×2 online experiment this fall, then analyzing the results in the winter and spring.
Vidya Krull (HCS) will mentor Yule Ko on a project titled Research Methods in a Current Topic Related to Hearing Healthcare. This research investigates factors that impact the efficiency of audiological service delivery in an academic clinic setting. A prospective quality improvement study will use value stream mapping of clinician and patient workflows to identify bottlenecks, propose and implement solutions, and index the efficacy of interventional approaches using a case study.
Yingdan Lu (Comm Studies) will mentor Hana Javed on a project titled Audio-as-Data for Social Science Research. This project aims to explore how large-scale audio data—encompassing various auditory forms such as speech, music and ambient noise—can be systematically collected, processed, and computationally analyzed for social science inquiries. As part of the team, you will assist with data analysis, methods validation, and literature review, gaining hands-on experience with cutting-edge computational methods.
Yingdan Lu (Comm Studies) will mentor Zach Guo on the Global Large Language Models Values Benchmarking Project. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Mistral are central to global decision-making and communication. However, training on regionally biased data often embeds sociopolitical values that influence how global challenges are interpreted and framed. This project proposes a systematic, comparative study to examine LLM sociopolitical values and perspectives on international conflict, climate change, public health, and migration. The project will ultimately informing AI governance, enhancing transparency, and fostering inclusive AI systems that reflect diverse global perspectives.
Bonnie Martin Harris/Kahla Graham (HCS) will mentor Minsoo Choi on a project titled Exploring Swallowing Frequency and Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease. Students will gain experience in research methods related to the evaluation and treatment of swallowing disorders related to Parkinson’s disease. Under the supervision of Dr. Martin-Harris and SCSC personnel, students will be trained to acquire and interpret data from physiologic signals, build and maintain datasets, learn the basics of statistical analysis and coding, and assist with literature review and abstract preparation
Mariah Morton-Jones (HCS) will mentor Kate Wieand on a project titled Blood Lactate as a Biomarker of Vocal Function: Validating a Novel Vocal Muscle Strength Task in Older Adults with Presbyphonia. Your voice is powered by muscles that weaken with age. This project blends speech and exercise science to test new ways of measuring vocal strength. Students gain hands-on skills in acoustic and aerodynamics voice analysis, metabolic measures, data collection and manuscript preparation. This project involves building tools to keep voices strong for life.
Erik Nisbet (Comm Studies) will work with Angela Zhou and Ellie White on a project titled Social Media Platforms and Support for Political Violence in the 2024 Election. The students will learn about conducting literature reviews, data wrangling and cleaning, LLM-supported text analysis, computational text and LLM-supported text and video analysis, network analysis, statistical analyses, machine learning, panel analysis.
Elizabeth Norton (HCS) will mentor Elizabeth Nemah on a project titled Studying Parent-Child Language Interactions with Coding and AI. This research lab explores early language development and how parents shape children’s development. This project will leverage AI tools to create parent language transcripts and analyze them using software employed in research and speech-language pathology practice. The work will be primarily from videos but there are opportunities to assist with data collection with families as well.
Adrian Rodriguez Contreras (HCS) will mentor Florence Haines on a project titled Impact of Hypoxic Exposure on Nervous System Development in Neonatal Rats. This project involves evaluating how environmental changes affect neurodevelopment in rat strains with different genetic backgrounds. One of the backgrounds involves a mutation on a synaptic protein that is involved in memory and learning. How exposure to low oxygen levels may affect neonates carrying this mutation is not well understood. We will be performing behavioral and physiological measurements used by lab members in the past year, including: video recording, audio recording, pulse oxymetry, and auditory brainstem responses.
Michelle Schumate (Comm Studies) will mentor Steven Xu on a project titled Building Effective Multi-Sector Collaboration Networks to Address Social Needs. This project involves supporting the development of a playbook for referral networks of health and human service organizations. This research will involve reading critically, synthesizing research, writing for various audiences, and publicity.
Pam Souza (HCS) will mentor Lurissa DeJesus on a project titled Communication in Older Adults with Hearing Loss and Cognitive Impairment. The focus of this project is dyadic communication between an older adult with hearing loss and mild cognitive impairment or dementia, and their primary communication partner. We are comparing two hearing loss treatments, over-the-counter hearing aids and communication strategies training to see if they improve communication.
Marisha Speights (HCS) will mentor Helen Qui on The Science of Sound: Tracking How Children’s Speech Develops. This project involves speech signal processing by extracting and analyzing acoustic features from child speech recordings. The student will visualize developmental trends, compare across groups, and interpret findings in relation to communication development, gaining skills in coding, statistics, and clinical research translation.