I am a social scientist and statistician studying persuasion and social influence that is mediated, amplified, or directed by interactive technologies. The design of new interactions, interventions, and methods is sometimes both a means and an end. I am currently a PhD candidate and researcher in the CHIMe Lab at Stanford University. I am also a consultant and researcher-in-residence at Facebook.
The principal subjects of my research are
- social interactions and influence through communication technologies and
- persuasive strategies implemented with interactive technologies
- applied statistics and causal inference for 1 and 2
In particular, I have studied how interactive technologies can be designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviors — whether by transforming and influencing their communications with others or by cuing them to treat systems and services as if they were human. Within this area, I have worked on mobile persuasive technologies, self-disclosure and sharing behaviors, persuasion profiling, and peer influence in online social networks. Some recent work develops research designs and methods of analysis for this work.
I was previously a member of the research staff at Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto. Before joining Nokia, I co-directed the mobile persuasion research program in the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab and worked at Yahoo! Research Berkeley on mobile photo sharing services.
I use my blog, Ready-to-hand, to share new ideas and report on research in an immediate and less formal way than scholarly publications.