People

 FACULTY 

Dr. Andrea H. Tapia

Bio:  Dr. Andrea H. Tapia is a Professor of Information Sciences and Technology and the Professor in Charge of the Social and Organizational Informatics Faculty Area within the College of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Tapia is a scholar of Crisis Informatics, the study of information discovery, needs, use and sharing in disaster or crisis settings. Dr. Tapia seeks to develop information and communication technology solutions that promote better decision-making across all responders.  Dr. Tapia’s most recent work focuses on making data generated by individuals or social networks via mobile information technologies useful to decision-makers within large institutions.  

Contact: E380 Westgate Building, College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, 814-883-3463,  axh50@psu.edu  

Personal website:  http://andreatapia.net

Dr. Jess Kropczynski

Bio: Dr. Jess Kropczynski is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Technology at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests are primarily in the design and evaluation of civic technology to support collective action in community networks. She has also worked with local and state governments to assess communication and information needs of target audiences in order to promote informed decision-making.

Contact: 238F Teachers-Dyer Complex

Cincinnati, OH  45221

Email: jess.kropczynski@uc.edu

Website: 

Dr. Rob Grace

Bio: Dr. Grace is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Texas Tech University. His research interests include crisis informatics, human-centered design, and risk communication. In particular, he examines the design and use of systems allowing citizens and officials to make sense of crisis events and coordinate effective responses to emergencies and disasters.

Email: rob.grace@ttu.edu

Website: 

Dr. Shane Halse

Bio: Dr Shane Halse is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Technology at the University of Cincinnati. His research interest’s focus in the domain of crisis response and improving the quality and quantity of information provided to first responders through the use of social media technologies. 

Contact: Academic – School of Information Technology

150H Teachers-Dyers Hall

Cincinnati  Ohio

Email: <shanehalse@gmail.com>

Website:

Dr. Fred Benaben
Dr. Aurelie Montarnal

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Jaime Reep

Bio:  Jamie Reep is a Lecturer and PhD candidate in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. His research interests lie at the intersection of organizational change and technology integration supporting improved business practices within Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs).

Contact: jar5757@psu.edu

Website: N/A

Julien Coche

Bio: Julien Coche is a PhD candidate in the department of Industrial Engineering at IMT Mines Albi (France). He is currently on the automatic extraction of crisis situation models from social media data. His research interests are in developing information systems helpful for crisis responders using machine learning technologies to process data from social media.

Contact: 10 Allée des Sciences, 81000, ALBI, France

Email: julien.coche@mines-albi.fr

Website: 

Chris Doty

Bio: Christopher Doty is a PHD Candidate enrolled in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology Informatics program. He is interested in the use of Social Media data to provide better situation awareness to first responders in various disaster and emergency scenarios.  

Email: cjd5456@psu.edu 

Website:

Sanjana Gautam

Bio: Sanjana Gautam is a PHD Candidate enrolled in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology Informatics program. My primary research interest is to use learning analytic to design tools to enhance the pedagogical experience of online learners. In the SCAN Lab, she is interested in understanding the role social media data plays in emergency scenarios. 

Contact: sqg5699@psu.edu

Website: https://www.sanjanagautam.com/

Guillermo Romera Rodriquez

Bio: Guillermo Romera is a PHD Candidate enrolled in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology Informatics program. His primary research interest is the use of gamification techniques in the educational context. His research interests in the SCAN group are the intersection between crisis management and social media.

Contact: gkr5144@psu.edu

Nathan Elrod
Howard Hall

Bio: Howard Hall is an undergraduate student at the University of Cincinnati within the School of Information Technology. He is interested in research of data collection and analysis of information pertaining to crisis situations. He is currently working on the development of PIVOT, a web-based data portal to view social media about local incidents in real time. 

Contact: hallho@mail.uc.edu

Website: N/A

Robin Batard

Bio: Robin Batard is a PhD candidate in the department of Economics and Social Sciences at Telecom Paris (France), and the department of Industrial Engineering at IMT Mines Albi (France). His research interests are in understanding and proposing ways to integrate citizen initiatives supported by social media into crisis response and management processes. This PhD research contributes to MACIV (Management of Citizens and Volunteers), a French National Research Agency project.

Email: robin.batard@mines-albi.fr

Website: N/A

Pranav Mahajan

Bio: Pranav Mahajan is an undergraduate student at the School of Information Technology, University of Cincinnati. He is interested in research of data collection and analysis of information pertaining to crisis situations. working on the development of PIVOT, a web-based data portal to view social media about local incidents in real time. 

Contact: mahajapp@mail.uc.edu

Website: https://homepages.uc.edu/~mahajapp/final/index.html