The Future of Internet Research:
What We Can Learn from the Facebook Emotional Contagion Study

Christian Sandvig, PhD

Christian Sandvig, PhD, is Steelcase Research Professor and associate professor at the University of Michigan, appointed in the Communication Studies Department, the Institute for Social Research, and the School of Information. He is also a faculty associate of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. His research investigates the societal consequences of new digital media infrastructures. He also studies and teaches about new research methods and co-edited the forthcoming book, "Digital Research Confidential: Studying Human Behavior Online" (MIT Press). Sandvig is a computer programmer with industry experience consulting for a Fortune 500 company, a regional government, and a San Francisco Bay Area software start-up. He received the PhD in Communication from Stanford University in 2002 and previously served as a visiting researcher at Intel Research, MIT, McGill University, and Oxford University. His peer-reviewed writing received “best paper” awards from six scholarly associations. Sandvig is a recipient of the US National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award (NSF CAREER) in the area of Human-Centered Computing and was named a "next-generation leader" in science and technology policy by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Elizabeth Buchanan, PhD

Elizabeth Buchanan, PhD, is endowed chair in ethics and director of the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Wisconsin(UW)-Stout. She is a scholar in the fields of research ethics, information/communication technology ethics, and research methods. Her work is particularly focused on the intersections of research regulation, internet or online venues and tools, and the subsequent ethical challenges that arise for researchers and research board reviewers. 

Dr. Buchanan serves as leadership director and vice-chair of the UW-Stout IRB, and has served on both social science and medical school research ethics boards. She has presented her National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research on IRBs and internet research to the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP) in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014. She has also presented at the Office for Human Research Protections Community Research Forums, and has done professional development work with many IRBs, including the Department of Energy, Rockefeller Clinical and Translational Science Center, New York University, and Columbia University, among others. Dr. Buchanan has presented conference sessions, pre-conference programs, and webinar for Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R) since 2008, and has served on various PRIM&R Conference Planning Committees since 2012. Dr. Buchanan has also been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility since 2012. 

Dr. Buchanan was a visiting research fellow in 2008-09 at the University of Oxford's E-Social Science Center, and has been a lecturer at the Upper Austrian University of Applied Science in Hagenberg, Austria since 2010. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Hyderabad in India in 2014.

Her most recent research was funded by the NSF, and examined computer science pedagogy and ethics in graduate computer and information science education. Recent publications include co-authored recommendations on internet research ethics to SACHRP; an article in Lecture Notes in Computer Science titled “The New Normal: Revisiting Internet Research Ethics”; an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entitled Internet Research Ethics; and a chapter on research ethics in the volume Research, Evaluation and Audit (Facet Publishing). Dr. Buchanan is the editor of one of the first anthologies of internet research ethics (Readings in Virtual Research Ethics, 2004), and is author and/or co-author to numerous papers on research ethics and methods in such venues as Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, Computers and Society, and the Blackwell Handbook of Internet Studies. Elizabeth is also primary co-author to the Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Guidelines for Internet Research. She holds Bachelor's degrees in philosophy and English from Rutgers University, and earned her Master’s and PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Mary L. Gray, PhD

Mary L. Gray, PhD, is a senior researcher at Microsoft Research and an associate Professor in the Media School, with adjunct appointments in American Studies, Anthropology, and Gender Studies, at Indiana University. She studied anthropology before receiving her PhD in communication from the University of California, San Diego in 2004. Her research looks at how media access and everyday uses of technologies transform people's lives. Her most recent book, Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America (New York University Press, 2009), honored by scholarly societies representing anthropology, media studies, and sociology, examined how young people in the rural United States use digital media to negotiate queer identities, local belonging, and connections to broader, imagined communities. Mary's current book project, co-authored with Siddharth Suri, examines the future of employment through present day case studies of crowdwork on four different crowdsourcing platforms, comparing workers' experiences in the United States and India. Mary served on the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association from 2008 through 2010 and is the Executive Program Chair for the Association's 113^th Annual Meeting.