The Real-world Interactions & Systems for Change (RISC) Group is a team of Human-Computer Interaction researchers working on designing and building socio-technical systems that promote positive social change. We are based at the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security.

Creating social changes requires respecting the agency of even the most vulnerable, and helping them exercise their agency (e.g., voicing one's opinion). But oftentimes, socio-technical systems are designed without considering these requirements. We strongly believe that within ethical realms, any individual—regardless of demographics or socio-economic status—should be able to freely carve out the interpersonal interactions they want on a system, or have a say over how companies use their data.

Research Directions

• Developing social media systems that respect the consent and agency of users, especially those who tend to have less power—to curate more empowering interpersonal interactions that are needed to create social change
• Developing mechanisms that give users and creators more agency over their data or creative work, as AI technologies are designed in a way to threaten it
• Studying how people perceive the socio-economic factors that enable tech companies to have a great deal of power, such as their business models

People

Jane Im, Faculty
Rimsha Sarfaraz, PhD student (rotation with Jane)
Joys K. Mathew, Masters student
Devika Sreenivasa Rao, Masters student

Open Positions

CISPA is a great place to do reseach, thanks to the interesting people and abundant resources. If you're interested in joining us, please read the following before contacting Jane.

[For PhD students]
Jane will soon update this page with more information, including links to the application portal.

[For Postdocs]
We are hiring one postdoc to work on tackling consent issues in generative AI development, especially for artists. Applicants can apply here: https://career.cispa.de/jobs/group-im-2025-70

[For Masters and undergraduate students]
We currently don't have openings due to Jane's bandwidth, but we will likely have some in December. Please feel free to get in touch then!
Our group has openings for research assistants. Please send an email to Jane with the following:

• A couple of paragraphs on why you want to work with us specifically. Jane is getting a lot of emails that mention words like "usable security" or "privacy-aware systems", but there are also other faculty at CISPA who work on those topics. If you're able to articulate that we have a good fit, it'll definitely increase your chances of joining our group.
• An example paper that you found interesting and a paragraph articulating the reason why. (Please do NOT simply select Jane's most recent publication -- many people are doing this, probably more than you think. Think hard about why a particular paper interests you and then write your answer.)
• An estimate of how many hours you can work per week.
• Your CV
• Your transcripts

Publications