Contact
PO Box 61173
Seattle, WA
98141-6173
About me
I'm a human-computer interaction researcher with a penchant for social media & systems. My chief interests lie in researching neighborhoods, communities, systems, relationships, and interface design. I appreciate all forms of interface design and evaluation. I am particularly inspired by world art, classic pixel designs, line art drawings, and major & minor movements from art noveau to Dutch printing press experimentations.
I have a MSCS with a specialization in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech. I was advised by Keith Edwards, and my individual qualifying examination was on rexamining online dating systems. I also hold a BS in Computer Science/Mathematics and BA in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College, where I spent a great deal of time at Clyde Barlow's biophysics laboratory as both an undergraduate researcher and 'all-purpose' lab employee (software engineering, image processing, instrumentation manuals, schematics). I have also interned at IBM Almaden in the USER group and worked as a software engineer at Fidelity Investments.
Current Projects
My thesis work was to center around CSCW and mobile-based community networks. What role can discovery, novelty, hyperlocality, and shared experience & creativity play in bringing communitites closer and articulating concerns in a proactive, positive manner?
Grassroots organization and community closeness: How are communities sharing knowledge and organizing in pro-social, democratic ways? Who are elders, how do communities resolve issues, make decisions, find answers to questions, get individuals to contribute? How can disenfranchised members of groups get their voices heard? How to design for specific communities? This ranges from hosting during election time to 'community connectors' referring individuals to 'the best fit'--whether a potential mentorship, contacting a local representative, or locating a safe place during a disaster.
Publications
"Understanding the Role of Community in Online Dating" Christina Masden, W. Keith Edwards SIGCHI 2015 PDF(~23%)
In the tradition of other empirical community papers, we examine both the systems design of online dating systems and the role community discussion can play in understanding them. What does it mean to communicate with prospective partners via one-to-one systems? Should we be examining matching algorithms more in-depth? Prompted by the increasing number of couples meeting via computer-mediated systems.
"Tensions in Scaling-up Community Social Media: A Multi-Neighborhood Study of Nextdoor" Christina Masden, Catherine Grevet, Rebecca Grinter, Eric Gilbert, W. Keith Edwards SIGCHI 2014 PDF(~23%)
Neighborhood networks go back to systems like the Blacksburg Electronic Village. We research NextDoor, a community networking system, and examine three neighborhoods. How are community dividing lines making a difference in communication? Why are individuals opting to use NextDoor over mailing lists maintained for years?
Honors
NSF-GRFP 2014
Teaching experience
Human-Computer Interaction, Spring 2015. Professor: Lauren Wilcox
Interests
My work operates at the intersection of systems, design, user experience research, empirical analysis, theory, and ethnography.
I am interested in connecting communities in positive, creative ways. I am also interested in UX and HCI research projects of all varieties, from evaluating systems deployments to formative qualitative approaches.
Longer term projects I am interested in working on, or discussing, include:
-any and all interface evaluation or product research
- novel games and matching for existing online dating systems
- serious analysis and fun, creative re-engineering applications of network morphology to social networks (no big data, starting from ABC or basic message passing)
- new neighborhood networks, maps, and connectors
- recommender systems based on human computation--chiefly, with respect to interface design
- discussing the importance of classic HCI evaluation from alternative lenses
- a traditional computer science textbook, that covers social media from building clones in a specified framework to history, in-depth deployment techniques and sites, scraping, and analysis with included datasets (much like Sahni, with a Kraut or Norman-esque approach, etc)
- writing about the vast importance of ethnographic & participatory design work in understanding and prototyping new systems
- collaboration in designing new prototypes
-tools for musicians, creatives, and artists to share their work and generate new kinds of interactive performances online
- designing better security interfaces
- modeling paparazzi swarms, completely not my chief field but pet project a) reconstructing models from older videos b)getting gps data from a major company
Add'tl
I appreciate all artistic endeavors•, and have experimented in many of them (as we all should just for fun!). I'm a huge club music nerd, and probably way more Euro in that sense. If you're interested in detailing music movements, we'll definitely have a lot to chat about.
Interested in Kiva? Microloans can help change the world.
Also, really into all kinds of coffee, tea (is silver needle mainstream yet? i hope so!), and cultural beverages and foods.