Assistant professor Cliff Lampe is working on two National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research projects this summer.  The first is part of a large study now being conducted by Michigan State University, “SoCS: Signal Processing and Information Theoretic Approaches to Denoising and Demystifying Social Network Services."

The project seeks to understand the underlying nature of social network services, which are online platforms that facilitate the building of social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, and Google+.  A deeper understanding of the structure of social networks and how it evolves over time can be applied to a variety of social issues, according to Lampe. For example, as people seek health information via social networks, knowing how these networks function could create better health outcomes.

As co-principal investigator, Lampe’s responsibilities will include designing and conducting data collection efforts, analyzing data and training and mentoring graduate student researchers on the project.

Providing growth opportunities for graduate students is an underlying goal for Lampe’s second NSF grant, a doctoral research consortium to be held in conjunction with the International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (Wikisym) 2012 in Linz, Austria in August.

Lampe is chair of this year’s Wikisym, which attracts students and faculty interested in how open technologies like wikis can support meaningful change and collaboration. The doctoral symposium participants, chosen from a wide range of disciplines, will present papers and posters related to open collaboration.   and receive feedback from their peers and a panel of experienced researchers and practitioners. The experience is designed to strengthen and sharpen the research focus of the candidates.