Audience Tools

Affiliate Positions

  • Affiliate, Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, University of Washington
  • Research Affiliate, Center for Studies of Demography & Ecology, University of Washington
  • Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, University of Washington
  • Co-Founder, Center for an Informed Public
  • Data Science Fellow, eScience Institute, University of Washington
  • Co-Director, Data Science and Analytics Lab, Information School, University of Washington

Specializations

  • Social Networks
  • Crisis Informatics and Misinformation
  • Computational Social Science

Research Areas

Courses

Biography

Dr. Emma S. Spiro is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington Information School, an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, and an affiliate of the UW Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. Dr. Spiro is a Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute at UW. At the UW iSchool Dr. Spiro is co-founder and current co-director of the Data Science and Analytics Lab (DataLab). She recently co-founded the Center for an Informed Public (CIP) at UW; the CIP is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary effort that brings together faculty, staff, students and community partners in service of a core mission aiming to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen democratic discourse. Dr. Spiro studies online communication and information-related behaviors in the context of emergencies and disaster events. Recently, she has focused on investigating misinformation online. Her work also explores the structure and dynamics of interpersonal and organizational networks in both online and offline environments. Dr. Spiro’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, and through other gifts. Her research has been published in PNAS, Social Networks, Field Methods, Demography and Information, Communication & Society, as well as in premier conferences such as the International Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW). Dr. Spiro earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Irvine. She also holds a B.A. in Applied Mathematics and a B.A. in Science, Technology, and Society from Pomona College, as well as an M.A. from the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

Education

  • Ph D, Sociology, University of California, Irvine, 2013
  • MA, Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Irvine, 2011
  • BA, Mathematics, Pomona College, 2007
  • BA, Science, Technology and Society, Pomona College, 2007

Awards

  • Best Paper Award - 10th International Conference on Social Computing and Social Media, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2018
  • Finalist, Lee Dirks Award for Best Paper - iConference 2017, Wuhan, China, 2017
  • Invited participant - Current Challenges in Computing (CCubed) 2017 Conference on Computational Social Science, 2017
  • Best Poster Award - 2nd Annual International Conference on Computational Social Science, Evanston, Illinois, 2016
  • Distinguished Teaching Award Nominee - University of Washington, 2016
  • Honorable Mention Paper (Top 5%) - ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, San Francisco, California, 2016
  • Top 30 Thinkers Under 30 - Pacific Standard Magazine: The Science of Society, 2014

Memberships

  • American Sociological Association
  • Association for Computing Machinery SIGCHI
  • Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
  • International Communication Association
  • International Network for Social Network Analysis
  • American Statistical Association
  • Population Association of America

Publications and Contributions

Presentations

  • Collective Senasemaking (2022)
    Narratives, Tech & Countering Disinformation, AAAS Annual Meeting - Virtual
  • Disinformation repeat offenders: Case of the 2020 U.S. election (2022)
    AAAS Annual Meeting - Philadelphia, PA
  • Disinformation Repeat Offenders: Case of the 2020 US Election (2022)
    Workshop on Measuring Belief Systems in Networked Communities, Princeton University - Princeton, NJ
  • Election disinformation: Real-time analysis and repeat offenders (2022)
    HCI Research Group: People & Technology Seminar - Virtual
  • Expressions of Vaccine Hesitancy Among Medical Professionals on Twitter (2022)
    American Sociological Association: Section on Social Media and the Internet - Los Angeles, California
  • Online Information Sharing of Spanish Speaking HUD Sponsored Homeless Care Organizations Response to COVID-19 Pandemic (2022)
    Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Cairns, Australia
  • Rumors, Mis- and Disinformation About the 2022 Midterm Elections: A Conversation with the UW Center for an Informed Public (2022)
    UW iSchool - Virtual
  • Talking about the jab: Medical professionals' expressions of vaccine hesitancy online (2022)
    Population Association of America Annual Meeting - Atlanta, Georgia
  • Technologies to Support Critical Thinking in an Age of Misinformation (2022)
    Dagstuhl Seminar - Wadern, Germany
  • UW Center for an Informed Public: How We Got Here (2022)
    Dagstuhl Seminar #22172, Schloss Dagstuhl Leibniz Center for Informatics - Wadern, Germany (virtual)
  • Election Disinformation: Real-time Analysis and Response (2021)
    South Big Data Hub, Social Cybersecurity Working Group - virtual
  • How data, knowledge, and expertise mobilize in online media during the COVID-19 crisis (2021)
    New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics Annual Conference - Virtual
  • Data Science During Times of Crisis (2020)
    Annual Meeting and Leaders Summit, Academic Data Science Alliance - virtual
  • Misinformation in the Context of Emergencies and Disaster Events (2020)
    Detecting, Combating, and Identifying Dis and Misinformation, AAAS Annual Meeting - Seattle, WA
  • Rapid Response Data Science: Frameworks for Effective Mobilization During Crises (2020)
    Academic Data Science Alliance - Virtual
  • Towards a Networked Demography? A case study of gender countercultures on Reddit (2020)
    40th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Paris, France (virtual)
  • Who Can We Trust? (2020)
    Seattle Town Hall - Seattle, WA
  • Who can we trust? Technology's impact on democracy (2020)
    Town Hall Seattle - Seattle, WA
  • Social Sensing: A Synergy between Computer and Social Sciences (2019)
    Panel at the 4th International Workshop on Social Sensing (SocialSens) at CPSWeek - Montreal, Canada
  • Tracing Networked Gender Discourse on Reddit (2019)
    39th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Montreal, Canada
  • Social Behavior During Crisis Events (2018)
    Media, Technology & Society (MTS) Speaker Series, Northwestern University - Evanston, Illinois
  • Social Behavior During Crisis Events (2018)
    Department of Psychology, University of Washington - Seattle, Washington
  • Understanding Social Behavior During Crisis Events using Digital Traces (2018)
    2018 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining - Barcelona, Spain
  • Look Who’s Watching: Understanding the Audience of Police on Social Media (2017)
    Demography Brown Bag Seminar Series, University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley, CA
  • Social Behavior During Crisis Events: Using Digital Traces to Understand Collective Behavior (2017)
    NYC Data Science Seminar - New York, New York
  • Social Networks and User Engagement: Preliminary Analysis (2017)
    Strava, Inc. - San Francisco, California
  • Understanding Social Behavior During Crisis Events using Digital Traces (2017)
    Sungkyunkwan University Data Science Exchange Program - Seattle, WA
  • `Automatic Misinformation Detection on Social Media Spaces during Crisis Events (2016)
    2nd Annual International Conference on Computational Social Science - Evanston, Illinois
  • #Unconfirmed: Online Social Behavior During Crisis Events.'' Workshop on Computational Social Science (2016)
    Workshop on Computational Social Science, University Konstanz - Konstanz, Germany
  • A Network-based Approach to Scoping Rumor Stories in Social Media (2016)
    36th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Newport Beach, California
  • Emergency Management Organizations' Twitter Follower Growths During and After Disasters (2016)
    36th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Newport Beach, California
  • Exploring Relationship Dynamics Between Citizens and the Police Via Twitter (2016)
    Population Association of America Annual Meeting - Washington, DC USA
  • Exploring Relationship Dynamics between Citizens and the Police Via Twitter (Best Poster Award) (2016)
    2nd Annual International Conference on Computational Social Science - Evanston, Illinois
  • Gender-based Opportunity Structures in an Activity-Based Online Social Networks (2016)
    American Sociological Association: Rationality and Society Section, Session on Rationality and Social Structure - Seattle, WA
  • Mechanisms of Tie Formation in Activity-based Online Social Networks (2016)
    36th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Newport Beach, California
  • Modeling rumor diffusion on social media during crisis events (2016)
    36th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Newport Beach, California
  • Networks of Gratitude: Structures of Thanks in Workplace Appreciation Systems (2016)
    University Konstanz - Konstanz, Germany
  • Personal Network Structures in Activity-based Online Social Networks (2016)
    36th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Newport Beach, California
  • Rumoring on Social Media During Crisis (2016)
    UW Undergraduate Research Program, Research Exposed!: Approaches to Inquiry - Seattle, WA USA
  • Social media expressions of alcohol use in young adults: An in-depth examination of Twitter activity as a predictor of high-risk drinking (2016)
    Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute Brown Bag, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute - Seattle, WA
  • Social media expressions of alcohol use in young adults: An in-depth examination of Twitter activity as a predictor of high-risk drinking (2016)
    Annual Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism - New Orleans, LA
  • The Structure of Activity-based Online Personal Networks (2016)
    Joint Statistical Meetings - Chicago, Illinois
  • Understanding Social Behavior During Crisis Events using Digital Traces (2016)
    Symposium on New Directions in Computational Social Science and Data Science. Simons Institute, University of California. - Berkeley, California
  • Demographic Opportunity Structures in Activity- Based Online Social Networks (2015)
    35th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Brighton, England
  • Did You Hear about the Computer that Can Detect Rumors?: An Algorithmic Approach to Rumor Detection (2015)
    Undergraduate Research Symposium - Seattle, WA USA
  • Emergency Management Interorganizational Networks (2015)
    35th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Brighton, England
  • Exploring Young Adults' Drinking Behavior via Digital Traces on Social Media (2015)
    Undergraduate Research Symposium - Seattle, WA USA
  • Expressed Uncertainty and Denials as Signals of Online Rumoring (2015)
    Collective Intelligence Conference - Santa Clara, CA USA
  • HEROIC: Hazards, Emergency Response, and Online Informal Communication (2015)
    40th Annual Natural Hazards and Applications Workshop - Broomfield, CO USA
  • Online Information Behaviors During Disaster Events: Roles, Routines, and Reactions (2015)
    Population Association of America Annual Meeting - San Diego, CA
  • Redrawing the 'Color Line': Examining Racial Segregation in Associative Networks On Twitter (2015)
    35th Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Brighton, England
  • Self-Presentation and Information Disclosure On Twitter: Understanding Patterns and Mechanisms Along Demographic Lines (2015)
    Population Association of America Annual Meeting - San Diego, CA
  • Social Interaction in Activity-Based Online Communities (2015)
    Joint Statistical Meetings - Seattle, WA USA
  • The Exploration of Leadership Structure within #YesAllWomen (2015)
    Undergraduate Research Symposium - Seattle, WA USA
  • Using Facebook Data to Examine Culture and Self-Disclosure Behaviors (2015)
    iConference - Newport Beach, CA
  • What Should Count?: A Quantitative Approach to Scoping Rumors in Social Media (2015)
    Social Media and Society Conference 2015 - Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • A Tale of Two Social Movements (2014)
    Sunbelt, International Network for Social Network Analysis - St. Pete Beach, FL
  • Did You Feel it? Spatial Filtering Techniques for Detection of Local Disaster Events (2014)
    American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, - San Francisco, CA
  • Online Information Behaviors During Disaster Events: Roles, Routines, and Reactions (2014)
    Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences - Seattle, WA
  • Project HEROIC: Hazards, Emergency Response, and Online Informal Communications (2014)
    Natural Hazards Annual Workshop - Boulder, CO
  • Taming 'Data in the Wild': The Promises and Pitfalls of Using Social Media Data for Demographic Research (2014)
    International Conference on Social Informatics Workshop - Social Scientists Working with Start-Ups - Barcelona, Spain
  • Degree dynamics: spikes and decay in attention relationships (2013)
    33nd Sunbelt Network Conference, International Network for Social Network Analysis - Hamburg, Germany
  • Hazard Warnings and Alerts: Content, Style, and Structure (2013)
    Toward a Smarter Society: The Role of Computational Social Science, Microsoft Research and University of Washington Workshop: Toward a Smarter Society: The Role of Computational Social Science - Bellevue, WA
  • Warning Tweets: Serial Transmission of Warning Messages during a Disaster Event (2013)
    American Sociological Association Annual Meeting: Regular Section on Disasters - New York, NY
  • When Bad Things Happen To 'Good' People: Online Communication Dynamics During Natural Hazard Events (2013)
    American Sociological Association Annual Meeting: Regular Section on Disasters - New York, NY
  • Diffusion of Innovation Among Government Organizations: Asymmetric Effects of Organizational Lineage on Social Media Adoption (2012)
    Fifth Joint Japan-North America Mathematical Sociology Conference, American Sociological Association Section for Mathematical Sociology - Denver, CO
  • Disruptive Diffusion: Adoption of Microblog Technologies Among Urban Organizations (2012)
    32nd Sunbelt Network Conference (INSNA) - Redondo Beach, CA
  • Mapping an Ecology of Privacy: A Crossnational Comparison of Control of Self-Presentation Online (2012)
    American Sociological Association Annual Meeting: Section on Communication and Information Technology - Denver, CO
  • Shifting Attention: The Effect of External Stimuli on Social Ties Among Emergency Management Organizations (2012)
    Political Networks Conference - Boulder, CO
  • Maintaining Ties from Coast to Coast: Selective Mixing Among U.S. Universities on Facebook (2011)
    American Sociological Association Annual Meeting: Section on Methodology Paper Session - Las Vegas, NV
  • Rumoring in Informal Online Communication Networks (2011)
    31st Sunbelt Network Conference, International Network for Social Network Analysis - St. Pete Beach, FL
  • Extended Structures of Mediation: Reexamining Brokerage in Dynamic Networks (2010)
    American Sociological Association Annual Meeting: Section on Mathematical Sociology Paper Session - San Francisco, CA