Project Description

Our National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded CIVIC project shows how we can train community members to work with expert systems in identifying COVID-19 and other disaster-related risks communicated on social media. By replicating and extending our proven approach nationwide, we provide situational awareness for emergency management.

To view our NSF abstract and award information, click the title below:

SCC-CIVIC-PG Track B: Assessing the Feasibility of Systematizing Human-AI Teaming to Improve Community Resilience, Award# 2043522 

We appreciate the funding from the National Science Foundation.  We are building momentum as we seek additional Stage 2 funding to expand our planning project.   

More About Our Project

Conducting focus groups to learn more about several key stakeholders in our project:

Emergency Managers: What do they need, and how can we provide them situational awareness so they can act on data?

CERT volunteers: What do they like about working with the Citizen Helper System (the expert computer systems and artificial intelligence)? How can better motivate and train them as we move beyond our work in the National Capital Region?

Governmental organizations: What opportunities and barriers do they see being engaged with this project as we expand nationwide?

NGOs and other volunteer-based organizations: Could we expand beyond CERT?  What organizations have volunteers with the skills and interests to be involved in the human-AI teaming initiatives?

More About Our Science

• Citizen Helper is an expert computer system originally designed with NSF funds. It includes a robust machine learning system and a user interface that has been heavily shaped by emergency managers, including Steve Peterson. Learn more by visiting Hemant Purohit’s Lab website:  https://citizenhelper.orc.gmu.edu/
• Understanding how volunteers interact with the user interface of Citizen Helper is the focus of Amanda Hughes. She is an expert in Crisis Informatics, understands how people use social media in crises, and studies human-computer interaction.
• Learning more about how to motivate volunteers, work with complex technologies in a team environment, and how disasters are occasions to study the human-technology practices are the areas of expertise Keri Stephens brings to the team.
• Pulling all these practices together and demonstrating how they all constitute community resilience is the expertise of Chris Zobel.
• This project integrates disciplines like computer science, human-computer interaction, social science, and disaster operations. We have research questions in each of these areas.