Social Innovations Group
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Vision

The Social Innovation Group consists of an interdisciplinary group of individuals specializing in the research and development of ubiquitous and social computing technologies. Our vision is simple: To design, build and enhance innovative technologies to solve real-world problems.

Our expertise lies in addressing real-world problems affecting marginalized groups and individuals primarily in the U.S. Our current projects aim to address unemployment, environmental sustainability, and technical literacy by fostering social and sociotechnical capital within these communities.

Our team is diverse, consisting of computer scientists, designers, social scientists, and business majors. We welcome undergraduate and graduate researchers, Ph.D.’s, and current or soon-to-be professionals looking to do social good.

Ongoing Projects

SocioTechnical capital, employment and economic mobility

Understanding the prospects for adapting technologies, such as online labor markets, to build and exploit both personal and impersonal SocioTechnical Capital (e.g., particularly among those with limited social and human capital) requires an understanding of the barriers that will need to be overcome to make such tools beneficial. This project aims to investigate these barriers and seek for ways for technology to mitigate them. This project also investigates existing tools that may be useful to these communities, and we design and implement customized tools to mitigate these barriers as well.

Technology to Support Newcomer Adaptation

People who relocate to new communities experience challenges such as social-network reconstruction and insufficient information for daily needs. When these challenges are not well addressed, newcomers face additional difficulties, such as mental health issues and limited employment resources. The research goal is to investigate how newcomers utilize information and communciation technologies (ICTs) to address challenges of relocation. This project also aims to identify barriers to their ICT use and propose technical solutions to address the barriers.

SES and Search

In general, we are seeking to understand whether there are correlations between socioeconomic status and individual search behavior. Given the personalization of search, we would like to understand whether and how individual search results could be impacted when searching for online-information related to more critical topics like health, education, loans and job opportunities.

Environmental Sustainability

In this project, we explore social aspects of environmental sustainability and specifically communication around eco-feedback technologies. Another aspect of this research investigates issues around energy consumption faced by low income and/or renter households.

Education

In this project, we explore existing data from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at the University of Michigan to understand how individuals unable to afford a formal education perform in these courses as compared to those able to afford formal education.

Good Health and Well-being

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides comprehensive and affordable health insurance for many uninsured individuals and families in the United States. To take advantage of the new law, individuals will need to investigate and select insurance plans and enroll into the online Federal Health Insurance Exchange. For many vulnerable populations, this will be challenging as they may have never had insurance before, and may lack expertise in selecting the appropriate insurance provider.

Media

SIG Employment Tool Research Summary

Learn more about our tools here!

Infographics

Papers and Publications

Our Amazing Team

Present

Tawanna Dillahunt

Principal Investigator, Team Lead |
UMSI Associate Professor

Julie Hui

UMSI Assistant Professor

Shruti Sannon

Postdoctoral Computing Innovation Fellow

Amelia Duffy

UM Undergrad

Vaishnav Kameswaran

UMSI Ph.D. Student

Ihudiya Finda Ogbonnaya-Ogburu

UMSI Ph.D. Student

Aarti Israni

UMSI Ph.D. Student

Sylvia Simioni

UMSI Ph.D. Student

Alex Lu

UMSI Ph.D. Student

Soyoung Lee

UMSI MSI Student

Anshika Saxena

UMSI MSI Student

James Lisowski

UM Undergrad

Pratik Mangtani

UMSI MSI Student

Cindy Zhao

UM Undergrad

Alum

Anandita Aggarwal

UMSI Master Student

Alexis Ashby

UM MSI Alum

Brittney Atkinson-McFarlane

NSF REU, Cornell University Student

Ameera Ayodeji

NSF REU and Bowie State Alum

Seungjoo Baek

UM MSI Alum

Jacob Berman

UM MSI Alum

Nishan Bose

UM MSI Alum

Jason Brill

UM CS/Design Undergrad

Thaddeus Brown

NSF REU and Bowie State Alum

Mingzhi Cai

UM CS Alum

Asha Chen-Phang

NSF REU, Northeastern University Student

David Cui

UM Alum

Jonathan De Heus

UM MSI Alum

Suleman Diwan

Developer

Michelle Fiesta

UM MSI Alum

Indulekha Ghandikota

UROP Student, EECS

Anna Gilhool

UMSI MSI Student

Samarth Gulati

UM MSI Alum

Marcy Held

UM MSI Alum

Joey Chiao-Yin Hsiao

UMSI Ph.D. Student

Benjamin Jen

UROP Student, LSA

Jashanjit Kaur

UM MSI Alum

Emory Kimball

UM Dearborn Undergrad

Malavika Krishnamachari

High School Student/Visiting Research Assistant

Saebom April Kwon

UM MSI Alum

Jason Lam

UM MSI Alum

Eva Li

UM Alum

Ruchita Lodha

UMSI Master Student

Amy Malone

NSF REU Alum, University of Maryland Undergrad

Sandy Ng

UM MSI Alum

Hailey Patterson

UROP Student, LSA

Pablo-Alejandro Quionones, Ph.D.

UMSI Alum

Sadhana Ramaseshadri

UMSI MSI Student

Jessica Salvador

UMSI REMS, University of Washington

Kaushal Solanki

UMSI Master Student

Mingda Tang

UM Alum

Raden Tonev

UM MSI Alum

Jaleesa Rosario Turner

UM MSI Student/REMS

Zengguang (Brian) Wang

UM Alum

Alice Wang

UMSI MSI Student

Earnest Wheeler

UMSI Alum

Xuecong (Esme) Xu

UM Alum

Yongwei Yuan

UM CS Alum

Muhan Zhao

UM CS Alum