Jane Im

I am currently researching how we can design and build consentful social platforms from a feminist point of view.
My general interests lie in human-computer interaction (HCI) and social computing.
I'm especially passionate about building socio-technical systems that can empower vulnerable population.

I'm a Ph.D. student at University of Michigan School of Information, advised by Eric Gilbert. :)

01/24/2020: I passed the pre-candidacy milestone.
12/09/2019: Our paper on synthesized social signals (S3s) got conditionally accepted to CHI 2020. Huge thanks to my collaborators!
11/13/2019: Accepted a research position intership offer! Super excited for next summer. :-)
11/09/2019: SVed for the first time at CSCW 2019 :) My paper got rejected so I didn't present anything, but still had fun talking about research!
03/01/2019: My position paper got accepted to CHI 2019 workshop "Sensitive Research, Practice and Design in HCI".
11/07/2018: Motherboard covered our work on Wikipedia's Request for Comments.
11/07/2018: Attended and gave my first talk at CSCW! Slides are here.
11/02/2018: Check out our blog post on catching Russian Trolls using machine learning.
09/19/2018: I gave my first research talk at Wikimedia Research Showcase.
04/02/2018: Decide to pursue my Ph.D. at University of Michigan, School of Information!
02/19/2018: Got accepted to University of Washington HCDE, University of Michigan SI, & University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign CS PhD programs.

Synthesized Social Signals: Computationally-Derived Social Signals from Account Histories
Jane Im, Sonali Tandon, Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Taylor Denby, Eric Gilbert
( full paper @ CHI 2020 )

Social signals are crucial when we decide if we want to interact with someone online. However, social signals are limited to the few that platform designers provide, and most can be easily manipulated. We propose a new idea called synthesized social signals (S3s): social signals computationally derived from an account’s history and then rendered into the profile. By developing and deploying a Chrome extension called Sig, we show that S3s can reduce receiver costs and raise the cost of faking signals.
paper

Deliberation and Resolution on Wikipedia: A Case Study of Requests for Comments
Jane Im, Amy X Zhang, Christopher J Schilling, David Karger
( full paper @ CSCW 2018 )

Request for Comment (RfC) is a system within Wikipedia for inviting new inputs to help resolve an ongoing content dispute.
We researched on preventing stale RfCs by building models to predict RfCs' outcomes.
paper - first research talk! - CSCW slides

Non-consensual Images/Videos on Social Media and Online Consent
Jane Im
( workshop paper @ CHI 2019 )

Non-consensual images/videos are a huge problem on the Internet, including social media.
This workshop paper stemmed from my interest on the problem of creepshots (불법촬영, "몰카") in South Korea.
workshop paper

Catching Russian trolls on Twitter using ML
Jane Im, Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Jackson Sargent, Paige Lighthammer, Taylor Denby, Ankit Bhargava, Libby Hemphill, David Jurgens, Eric Gilbert
( arXiv paper )

We've been trying to find suspected Russian trolls on Twitter with machine learning: We think they're out there.
This is my first research project as a PhD student and the motivation for me was to help the U.S. election.
blog post - arXiv paper

App Inventor VR Editor for Computational Thinking
Jane Im, Paul Medlock-Walton, Mike Tissenbaum
( short paper @ CTE 2017 )

I programmed a JavaScript API for embedding VR blocks into MIT App Inventor using libraries including three.js and Physijs.
short paper - slides

Customized blocks in MIT App Inventor

I implemented a new feature called “user-defined blocks (customizable blocks)” into MIT App Inventor, an open source web platform that lets users build their own Android Apps quickly by using blocks-based programming.
I became interested into the system-building aspect of HCI through this project.
final report - slides - demo

3D Printing Assisted Fabrication of Soft Robotic Hand with Embedded Soft Electronic Circuits

We developed 3D printing based soft robotic hands with stand-alone actuation and control system. I also contributed to the lab by independently implementing the software interface for precision 3D printing for advanced soft materials.
award announced page - details - demo - slides