Nearly 50 students, faculty, and visitors gathered at the Integrative Learning Center on May 8, 2026 for the 2026 Computational Social Science Student Poster Session, an event co-sponsored by the Data Analytics and Computational Social Science (DACSS) program, the Computational Social Science Institute (CSSI), and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Artificial Intelligence (SBS-AI) series.
The poster session brought together student presenters from around UMass, including those from communication, computer science, political science, public policy, and sociology, to showcase innovative research at the intersection of computational social science, AI, machine learning, social networks, text-as-data, and the future of work.
"This poster session shows that UMass students at all levels are at the forefront of computational social science research and thinking," said Professor Omer Yalcin, an organizing committee member. "With projects spanning all aspects of human behavior—such as social media, protests, health policy, and news media—while also advancing methodological work at the cutting edge of computational methods, AI, LLMs, network analysis, and beyond, each project moves us one step closer to understanding our social world."
The event, which began in 2024, aims to create a collaborative space where students receive interdisciplinary feedback on socio-technical challenges and opportunities.
"The most pressing questions in AI governance will not be answered by any single discipline," said Professor Carolina Rossini. "Events like this poster session make visible the kind of cross-disciplinary thinking we need: students combining computational methods with social science, policy analysis, and critical inquiry to address the real-world consequences of emerging technologies."
Professor Erico Yu highlighted the high level of engagement and energy at the session. "What made this poster session so exciting was not just the range of topics, but the energy in the room: every few steps, you heard a new question, a new method, or a new way of thinking about a social problem. Having helped organize this event multiple times, I have learned that each year has its own character, and the e-poster format made the exchanges between presenters and audience especially lively and engaging."
Awards were also presented to students for outstanding achievement in several categories:
- Best AI Poster: Safwan Rob, "Detecting Strategic Ambiguity in Congressional Self-Regulation"
- Best Application Poster: Anabel Costa, "Gender-Based Recruitment Patterns and Social Networks Among People Who Inject Drugs (PWID): An Analysis of 15 Sites in Kenya"
- Best Graphics Poster: Enerelt Skye Durr, "Sticker or Sticky? Badge-Seeking Behavior and Post-Validation Linguistic Decay in Voluntary Sustainability Frameworks"
- Best Method Poster: Gayathri Sunil, "Estimating Support for US Presidential Candidates Using X Polls"
- Best Undergraduate Poster: Angel Cruz, "Comparative Analysis of Massachusetts High School Mathematics Curricula"
- Best Masters Poster: Mark Scott, Boaz Alkalay, and Elizabeth Miller, "Mapping the Epstein Files: Contextualizing Gender via Social Network Analysis"
- Best PhD Poster: Sabrina Zaman Ishita and Sidharth Kaliappan, "CASEbot: A Conversational Agent for Structuring and Personalizing the Design of Self-Experiments in Personal Health"
Poster Session Photos
