The Computing Innovation Fellows Project

Posted on: Sunday, June 7th, 2009
Broad Research Area: Graphics / Visualization, HCI / CSCW, Information Systems / Information Science, Other, Social Computing / Social Informatics

Research Interests:

The Center for Policy Informatics (CPI) leverages cutting-edge technology and cross-disciplinary theory to help individuals and communities make and evaluate policy choices. Established in January 2008, the center’s modeling, simulation and theoretical work supports and critiques activities at ASU’s Decision Theater, a world-class interactive 3d immersive visualization environment created to facilitate group decision-making (www.decisiontheater.org ). CPI’s goal is to develop policy-relevant models that balance the complexity of real-world phenomenon with transparent, actionable evidence. Both externally funded and community focused projects provide the center a forum for the exchange of ideas and resources for modeling and simulations.

For example, researchers at the Decision Theater recently developed an interactive table-top event that used both a system’s dynamics model and decisions support system to test coordination strategies between ASU and external agencies during a pandemic outbreak. The participants were leaders in Arizona’s health and education communities. The value of this exercise was immediately relevant when the swine flu broke out and participants referred to their experience with the decision theater as being instrumental in their response.

Future work will be in a number of context including challenges in public health, sustainability, urban growth, crisis management, and related policy decisions. For example, the challenge of discouraging adolescents from smoking must address a multitude of factors that influence an individual’s decision to smoke: peer influence, social networks, physical addictions, environmental factors, family behaviors, genetics, marketing, and individual decision?making. This project seeks to understand the decisions, environments, and pathways in which the major forces of addictive behavior interact. It will achieve this understanding through creation of a systems?based, social?network model for smoking behavior that will spur new scenarios for possible interventions and allow policymakers and pubic?health professionals to visualize the cascading effects of a multitude of individual decisions.

Please refer to the Decision Theater and Center for Policy Informatics websites for a sample of the range and types of research that is possible ( http://cpi.asu.edu/home and www.decisiontheater.org ).

Potential CI fellows will be expected to assist with both current research and to develop an independent research agenda consistent with vision of the Center for Policy Informatics and the Decision Theater at ASU. Fellows with a multidisciplinary background are particularly encouraged to apply.

Contact Information:

Please contact Dr. Erik Johnston at email obfuscated - click to reveal with your CV, dissertation topic, and specific research interest that aligns with the Center for Policy Informatics and the Decision Theater.