Jacob Groshek, Institute Junior Faculty Fellow, to Give Mar 15, 2017 Meet Our Fellows Talk

3:00 PM – 4:30 PM on Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Refreshments & networking at 2:45 PM
Hariri Institute for Computing
111 Cummington Mall, Room 180

Last fall, the Hariri Institute for Computing launched a redesigned “Meet Our Fellows” series that will showcase the Institute’s 2016 Junior Faculty Fellows as well as the inaugural cohort of Hariri Graduate Student Fellows. Prior to Junior Faculty Fellow presentations, a Graduate Student Fellow will give a 5-minute preview of his or her current research.

Meet Our Fellows/Research Preview: Shahrooz Zarbafian
Hariri Graduate Fellow, Hariri Institute for Computing
PhD candidate, Mechanical Engineering (ENG)
“Optimization Algorithms for Computational Protein Docking” – Zarbafian’s research focuses on developing computational tools to facilitate the drug discovery process where the goal is to discover new drugs or identify effective current medications for treating emerging diseases. His projects involve algorithm development for the interdisciplinary problem of computational protein docking at the Structural Bioinformatics and Network Optimization and Control labs at Boston University. Specifically, he uses optimization and machine learning frameworks to simulate protein-protein interactions. 

Meet Our Fellows/Junior Faculty Fellow Presentation
Affordance Effects of Networks, Mobility, and Participation
Jacob Groshek
Junior Faculty Fellow, Hariri Institute for Computing
Assistant Professor, Emerging Media Studies (COM)
With an introduction given by James Katz, Professor and Director, Division of Emerging Media Studies.

Abstract: This presentation considers the intersection of social media platforms and how audiences use and create content in unique contexts. More specifically, this talk covers an examination of millions of tweets using the Boston University Twitter Collection and Analysis Toolkit (BU-TCAT) to identify influential users in the information flow as well as how mobility shapes civility in content. Additional research presented looks at participation in politics as it relates to using different forms of social media, including streaming television and the notion of filter bubbles and echo chambers.

Bio: Jacob Groshek was selected as an Institute Junior Faculty Fellow in fall 2016. He is an assistant professor in the Departments of Emerging Media Studies at Boston University’s College of Communication. His research focuses on communication technologies and the ways in which the structure, content and uses of online and mobile media may influence sociopolitical change at the macro (national) and micro (individual) levels.  Related to these pursuits, his body of work also includes applied econometric analyses, such as time-series and panel models that link democratic change with media diffusion and social media content. He earned his Ph.D. at Indiana University in 2008 and has since published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, including pieces in Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Social Scientific Computer Review, and the International Journal of Communication, among others. He has previously held academic appointments at Iowa State University, Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands), the University of Melbourne (Australia), and was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (France).