Audience Tools

Affiliate Positions

  • Faculty, Center for an Informed Public
  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Washington School of Computer Science and Engineering

Specializations

  • Social Computing
  • Computer Supported Cooperative Work
  • Online Misinformation

Research Areas

Courses

  • IMT 573 - Data Science I: Theoretical Foundations
  • INSC 570 - Research Design

Biography

Tanu Mitra is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington Information School, where she leads the Social Computing research group. Her research focuses on studying and building large-scale social computing systems to understand and counter problematic information online. Her work employs a range of interdisciplinary methods from the fields of human computer interaction, data mining, machine learning, and natural language processing.

Dr. Mitra’s work has been supported by grants from the NSF, DoD, Social Science One, and other Foundations. Her research has been recognized through multiple awards and honors, including an NSF-CRII award and the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Outstanding New Assistant Professor Award. Dr. Mitra received her PhD in Computer Science from Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing and her Masters in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.

Education

  • Ph D, Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017
  • MS, Computer Science, Texas A&M University, 2011

Awards

  • Best Paper Honorable Mention (Top 5% of submission) - 2022 CSCW Conference, 2022
  • Conference Impact Award - 2022 CSCW, 2022
  • ICWSM 2022 Best Paper Award - ICWSM, 2022
  • Adamic-Glance Distinguished Young Researcher Award - AAAI ICWSM, 2021-2021
  • Best Paper Honorable Mention - ACM CSCW 2021, 2021-2021
  • Google Research Scholar Award - Google, 2021
  • Young Investigator Program (YIP) award - Office of Naval Research (ONR), 2021
  • ICTAS Junior Faculty Award - Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2018
  • Promising Junior Investigator - Consortium for the Science of Socio-Technical Systems (CSST), 2016-2016
  • IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award - IBM, 2016
  • Foley Scholar Recipient - GVU Center, 2015-2015
  • ICWSM Student Travel Grant Recipient - ICWSM, 2015-2015
  • Best Paper Honorable Mention - CHI Conference, 2015
  • ACL Travel Award - LTCSS workshop, 2014-2014
  • GTRIC Fellowship Winner - Georgia Tech Research & Innovation Conference, 2014-2014
  • GTRIC Fellowship Winner - Georgia Tech Research & Innovation Conference, 2013-2013
  • Winner SAIC - Science Applications International Corporation, 2012
  • Royce E. Wisenbaker '39 Graduate Fellowship - Texas A&M University, 2009-2010
  • Best Paper Honorable Mention - CHI 2021, 2021

Publications and Contributions

  • Journal Article, Professional Journal
    A survey on event-based news narrative extraction (2023)
    ACM Computing Survey (2023), 55(14s), pp. 39 Authors: Brian Keith Norambuena, Tanushree Mitra, Chris North
  • Conference Paper
    Assessing enactment of content regulation policies: A post hoc crowd-sourced audit of election misinformation on YouTube (2023)
    CHI 2023: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 22 Authors: Prerna Juneja, Md Momen Bhuiyan, Tanushree Mitra
  • Journal Article, Professional Journal
    Building Human Values into Recommender Systems: An Interdisciplinary Synthesis and Open Problem (2023)
    ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems Authors: Jonathan Stray, Alon Halevy, Parisa Assar, Dylan Hadfield-Menell, Craig Boutilier, Amar Ashar, Sara Johansen, Lianne Kerlin, David Vickrey, Spandana Singh, Sanne Vrijenhoek, Amy Zhang, Mckane Andrus, Natali Helberger, Polina Proutskova, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Learning from the Ex-Believers: Individuals’ Journeys In and Out of Conspiracy Theories Online (2023)
    ACM Human Computer Interaction (CSCW 2023), 7(Unknown Issue), pp. 37 Authors: Kristen Engel, Shruti Phadke, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Mixed Multi-Model Semantic Interaction for Graph-based Narrative Visualization (2023)
    IUI 2023: 28th Annual Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, pp. 23 Authors: Brian Keith Norambuena, Tanushree Mitra, Chris North
  • Conference Paper
    NewsComp: Facilitating Diverse News Reading through Comparative Annotation (2023)
    CHI 2023: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 17 Authors: Md Momen Bhuiyan, Tanushree Mitra, Sang Won Lee
  • Journal Article, Professional Journal
    Watching the Watchdogs: Using Transparency Cues to Help News Audiences Assess Information Quality (2023)
    Media and Communication, 11(4) Authors: Brian Keith Norambuena, Katharina Reis Farina, Michael Horning, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Human and technological infrastructures of fact-checking (2022)
    Proceedings of the 2022 Conference On Computer Supported Cooperative WorkAnd Social Computing (CSCW ’22) Authors: Prerna Juneja, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    OtherTube: Facilitating Content Discovery and Reflection By Exchanging YouTube Recommendations With Strangers (2022)
    CHI 2021: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Md Momen Bhuiyan, Carlos Isaza, Tanushree Mitra, Sang Won Lee
  • Conference Paper
    OtherTube: Facilitating Content Discovery and Reflection By Exchanging YouTube Recommendations With Strangers (2022)
    CHI2022: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Md Momen Bhuiyan, Carlos Isaza, Tanushree Mitra, Sang Won Lee
  • Conference Paper
    Pathways through Conspiracy: The Evolution of Conspiracy Radicalization through Engagement in Online Conspiracy Discussions (2022)
    ICWSM 2022: 16th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media Best Paper Authors: Shruti Phadke, Mattia Samory, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    RecXchange: Facilitating Content Discovery and Reflection by Exchanging YouTube Recommendations with Strangers (2022)
    ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Momen Bhuiyan, Carlos Isaza, Tanushree Mitra, Sang Won Lee
  • Conference Paper
    SAFER: Social Capital-Based Friend Recommendation to Defend against Phishing Attacks (2022)
    Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media Authors: Zhen Guo, Jin-Hee Cho, Ing-Ray Chen, Srijan Sengupta, Michin Hong, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Auditing E-Commerce Platforms for Algorithmically Curated Vaccine Misinformation (2021)
    Proc. CHI 2021: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Prerna Juneja, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Characterizing Social Imaginaries and Self-Disclosures of Dissonance in Online Conspiracy Discussion Communities (2021)
    Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW’ 21) Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Shruti Phadke, Mattia Samory
  • Journal Article, Academic Journal
    Design Guidelines For Narrative Maps in Sensemaking Tasks (2021)
    Journal of Information Visualization Authors: Brian Keith Norambuena, Tanushree Mitra, Chris North
  • Conference Paper
    Designing Transparency Cues in Online News Platforms to Promote Trust: Journalists’ & Consumers’ Perspectives (2021)
    Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW’ 21) Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Md Momen Bhuiyan, Hayden Whitley, Michael Horning, Sang Won Lee
  • Conference Paper
    Educators, Solicitors, Flamers, Motivators, Sympathizers: Characterizing Roles in Online Extremist Movements (2021)
    Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Vol. 5 (CSCW3), CSCW 2021, 5(Unknown Issue) Authors: Shruti Phadke, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Poster
    Evaluating the Inverted Pyramid Structure through Automatic 5W1H Extraction and Summarization (2021)
    Computation+Journalism (C+J) 2021 Symposium Authors: Brian Keith Norambuena, Michael Horning, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Poster
    Exploring the Information Landscape of News using Narrative Maps (2021)
    Computation+Journalism (C+J) 2021 Symposium Authors: Brian Keith Norambuena, Tanushree Mitra, Chris North
  • Conference Paper
    Narrative Sensemaking: Strategies for Narrative Maps Construction (2021)
    Proceedings of 2021 IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS), 2021 Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Brian Keith Norambuenaa, Chris North
  • Conference Paper
    NudgeCred: Supporting News Credibility Assessment on Social Media Through Nudges (2021)
    Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW’ 21) Authors: Md Momen Bhuiyan, Michael Horning, Sang Won Lee, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Workshop Paper
    Provocation: Contestability in Large-Scale Interactive NLP Systems (2021)
    Bridging Human–Computer Interaction and Natural Language Processing (EACL 2021) Author: Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Poster
    "Who" in the Crowdsourcing of News Credibility (2020)
    Computation + Journalism Symposium (C+J 2020) Authors: Md Momen Bhuiyan, Amy X. Zhang, Connie Moon Sehat, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Many Faced Hate: A Cross Platform Study of Content Framing and Information Sharing by Online Hate Groups (2020)
    CHI 2020: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Shruti Phadke, Tanushree Mitra
  • Journal Article, Academic Journal
    Online Social Deception and Its Countermeasures: A Survey (2020)
    IEEE Access, 9(Unknown Issue), pp. 1770-1806 Authors: Zhen Guo, Jin-Hee Cho, Ing-Ray Chen, Srijan Sengupta, Michin Hong, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    SENPAI: Supporting Exploratory Text Analysis through Semantic & Syntactic Pattern Inspection (2019)
    ICWSM 2019: 13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media Authors: Mattia Samory, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Conspiracies Online: User discussions in a Conspiracy Community Following Dramatic Events (2018)
    ICWSM 2018: 12th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media Authors: Momen Bhuiyan, Kexin Zhang, Kelsey Vick, Michael Horning, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Extended Abstract
    FeedReflect: A toolkit for engaging users in active reflection on Twitter (2018)
    The 21st ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2018) Authors: Momen Bhuiyan, Kexin Zhang, Kelsey Vick, Michael Horning, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Extended Abstract
    Framing Hate with Hate Frames: Designing the Codebook (2018)
    CSCW 2018 Authors: Shruti Phadke, Johnathan Lloyd, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    Growth in Social Network Connectedness among Different Roles in Organizational Crowdfunding (2018)
    GROUP 2018: ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work Group 2018 Authors: Michael Muller, Tanushree Mitra, Werner Geyer
  • Conference Paper
    Spread of Employee Engagement in a Large Organizational Network: A Longitudinal Analysis (2018)
    CSCW 2018: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Michael Muller, Sadat Shami, Abbas Goelstani, Mikhil Masli
  • Conference Paper
    The Government Spies Using Our Webcams: The Language of Conspiracy Theories in Online Discussions (2018)
    CSCW 2018: Proceedings on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Authors: Mattia Samory, Tanushree Mitra
  • Conference Paper
    A Parsimonious Language Model of Social Media Credibility Across Disparate Events (2017)
    CSCW 2017: 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Graham Wright, Eric Gilbert
  • Conference Paper
    Recovery amid pro- anorexia: Analysis of recovery in social media (2016)
    CHI 2016: 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Stevie Chancellor, Munmun De Choudhoury
  • Conference Paper
    Understanding Anti-Vaccination Attitudes in Social Media (2016)
    ICWSM 2016: 10th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Scott Counts, James W. Pennebaker
  • Conference Paper
    CREDBANK: A Large-scale Social Media Corpus With Associated Credibility Annotations (2015)
    Proceedings of the Ninth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2015) Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Eric Gilbert,
  • Conference Paper
    Comparing Person-and Process-centric Strategies for Obtaining Quality Data on Amazon Mechanical Turk (2015)
    Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Authors: Tanushree Mitra, C.J. Hutto
  • Conference Paper
    Modeling Factuality Judgments in Social Media Text (2014)
    Proceedings of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2014) Authors: Soni Sandeep, Tanushree Mitra, Eric Gilbert, Jacob Eisenstein
  • Conference Paper
    The language that gets people to give: Phrases that predict success on Kickstarter (2014)
    CSCW 2014: 17th ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and social computing Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Eric Gilbert
  • Conference Paper
    Cost, Precision, and Task Structure in Aggression-Based Arbitration for Minimalist Robot Cooperation (2012)
    Proceedings of the International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Dylan A. Shell
  • Conference Paper
    Have You Heard?: How Gossip Flows Through Workplace Email (2012)
    Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2012) Authors: Tanushree Mitra, Eric Gilbert

Presentations

  • Algorithmic Design in the Context of Human Rights: Designing Reliable Algorithms (2023)
    Utilizing Digital Technology for Social Cohesion, Positive Messaging and Peace by Boosting Collaboration, Exchange and Solidarity - Istanbul, Türkiye
  • Algorithmic Governance: Auditing Search and Recommendation Algorithms for Problematic Content (2023)
    Stanford Seminar on People, Computers and Design - Palo Alto, California
  • Getting Data for CSCW Research (2023)
    Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2023) - Minneapolis, Minnesota
  • Human and Technological Infrastructures of Fact-checking: Designing and Building with (not just for) Fact-Checkers (2023)
    International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2023) - Limassol, Cyprus
  • IDeaS Center Seminar Series (2023)
    Carnegie Mellon University, Software and Societal Systems Department - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • Spotify Safety Advisory Council Speaker on Algorithm Audits (2023)
    Spotify Safety Advisory Council - Virtual
  • World Affairs Council (WAC) U.S. Department of State Delegation Meeting on “Countering Violent Extremism” (2023)
    World Affairs Council (WAC) U.S. Department of State - Washington, D.C.
  • 2022 US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium (2022)
    The Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) 2022 Symposium - Seattle, WA
  • Credibility and Misinformation in Social Media: Reflections from Studying, Auditing, and Building Online Social Systems (2022)
    16TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA (ICWSM) - Atlanta, GA
  • Problematic Information on Social Media Platforms: Understanding and Countering (2022)
    FEVER Workshop - Dublin, Ireland (online)
  • Understanding and Countering Problematic Information on Social Media Platforms (2022)
    University of Michigan School of Information’s Data Science/Computational Social Science - Ann Arbor, MI (Virtual)
  • Academic Research on YouTube: The State of the Field and Potential Future Directions, (2021)
    Stanford University - Palo Alto, California, US
  • Addressing Challenges and Opportunities in Online Extremism Research: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (2021)
    The 24th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing - Virtual
  • Algorithmic Bias and Governance (2021)
    Ensuring Scholarly Access to Digital Records, Virginia Tech and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) - Virtual
  • Algorithmic Bias and Governance (2021)
    UW iSchool Spring Lecture - Virtual
  • Algorithmic Governance: Auditing Search and Recommendation Algorithms for Misinformation (2021)
    Spotify Research - Virtual
  • Algorithmic Governance: Auditing Search and Recommendation Algorithms for Misinformation (2021)
    Conference for Truth and Trust Online - Online
  • Algorithmic Governance: Auditing Search and Recommendation Algorithms for Misinformation (2021)
    Google: Long-term Dynamics for Responsible Recommendation Systems Workshop - Online
  • Algorithmic nudge: Using XAI frameworks to design interventions (2021)
    2021 ACM CHI Virtual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021) - Yokohama, Japan (virtual)
  • Computational Techniques for Social Good (2021)
    Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW) - New Dehli, India
  • Exploring Bias & Technology: A Tri-Campus Discussion (2021)
    UW Center for Business Analytics - Bothell, Washington (virtual)
  • Introducing Credibility Signals and Citations to YouTube (2021)
    The 15th International Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2021) - Virtual
  • Investigating the impact of personalization on misinformation present in algorithmically curated content in YouTube (2021)
    14th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2021) - Amsterdam, Netherlands (virtual)
  • Understanding and Countering Problematic Information on Social Media Platforms (2021)
    Stanford Cyber Policy Center (Fall Webinar Series) - Online
  • Understanding and Countering Problematic Information on Social Media Platforms (2021)
    AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing - Online
  • Algorithmic Governance: Auditing Search and Recommendation Algorithms for Misinformation (2020)
    Research Symposium, UW iSchool - Seattle, WA (virtual)
  • Investigating Differences in Crowdsourced News Credibility Assessment: Raters, Tasks, and Expert Criteria (2020)
    23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2020) - Virtual
  • Measuring Misinformation in Video Search Platforms: An Audit Study on YouTube (2020)
    23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2020) - Virtual
  • Narrative Maps: An Algorithmic Approach to Represent and Extract Information Narratives (2020)
    23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2020) - Virtual
  • Panel on Influence Campaigns & Future Technologies (2020)
    National Academy of Sciences - Washington DC
  • Understanding and Countering Problematic Information on Social Media Platforms (2020)
    DUB Seminar, UW - Seattle, WA (virtual)
  • What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities?: Role of Social Factors in Conspiracy Engagement (2020)
    23rd ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2020) - Virtual
  • Combating Misinformation Convening (2019)
    Google - Mountain View, CA
  • Emerging Trends in Social Media (2019)
    NATO StratCom Centre Of Excellence - Riga, Latvia
  • IARPA CASE Panel: Innovations in Credibility of Information (2019)
    Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity - Riverdale Park, MD
  • ISAT/DARPA Cognitive Defense: Detecting and Defending Against Influence Operations Workshop (2019)
    Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - Arlington, VA
  • The Future of Speech Online (2019)
    Center for Democracy & Technology - Washington DC
  • Combating Misinformation Convening (2018)
    Google - Mountain View, CA
  • ISAT/DARPA Coginitive Defense: Designing for Defense Workshop (2018)
    Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - Arlington, VA
  • Urban Dynamics Institute Seminar Series (2018)
    Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) - Tennesee
  • Dept. of Computer Science (2017)
    Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA
  • College of Information Studies (2017)
    University of Maryland - College Park, MD
  • Dept. of Communication Studies (2017)
    Northwestern University - Evanston, IL
  • Dept. of Computer Science (2017)
    University of Maryland - College Park, MD
  • School of Informatics and Computing (2017)
    Indiana University - Indianapolis, IN
  • Foley Scholars Brown Bag (2016)
    GVU Center at Georgia Tech - Atlanta, GA