School of Information Sciences

Rezapour defends dissertation

Doctoral candidate Shadi Rezapour successfully defended her dissertation, "From User-generated Text to Insight; Context-aware Measurement of Social Impacts and Interactions Using Natural Language Processing," on July 20.

Her committee included Associate Professor Jana Diesner (chair); Professor Ted Underwood; Roxana Girju, professor of linguistics; and Karrie Karahalios, professor of computer science.

Abstract: Recent improvements in information and communication technologies contributed to an increasingly globalized and connected world. The digital data that is created as the result of people's online interactions consists of different types of information that can be used to analyze people's beliefs, ideas, and biases. This thesis leverages methods, theories, and views from NLP and social sciences to investigate the manifestations of various attributes and signals, namely social impact, personal values, and moral traits in text. Furthermore, we first present a study at the intersection of review mining and impact assessment and provide a comprehensive discussion on different types of impact that information products can have on people. We then investigate the relationship between principles of morality and stance in text and operationalize moral values to enhance the prediction of social effects. Finally, we extend the theory of structural balance to include direction and utilize emotion and morality to study people's interactions in social networks. Overall, this thesis contributes to the emerging field of “social” NLP and broadens the scope of research in this field by utilizing a combination of novel taxonomies, datasets, and tools to examine user-generated texts and providing comprehensive insights about human language, cultures, and experiences.

Tags:
Updated on
Backto the news archive

Related News

Get to know Jade Carthans, BSIS student

Jade Carthans is interested in how human-centered design, machine learning, and data analytics can come together to solve critical problems that impact organizations and individuals. She gained firsthand experience in these areas through internships with Microsoft and State Farm.

Jade Carthans

Ravury selected to serve on Homecoming Court

BSIS student Lauren Ravury has a new item to add to her resume: member of the 2025 Homecoming Court at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ravury's resume is already impressive. She serves as president of the Student Alumni Ambassadors (SAA), an organization dedicated to fostering school spirit at the U. of I. Last year, she served as president of the Asian Pre-Law Association, a stint that led to her receiving the Outstanding Asian & Asian American Undergraduate Student Leader Award from the Asian American Cultural Center and the association being named the 2025 Outstanding Asian & Asian American Student Organization.

Lauren Ravury

Illini 4000 journey leaves lasting impact on Patllollu

As a member of the Illini 4000, BSIS student Riddhima Patllollu biked from New York City to San Francisco to raise awareness of cancer and raise funds for cancer research. Patllollu, a junior from New Jersey, decided to join the nonprofit organization in her freshman year to expand her worldview and mark a new chapter in her life. 

Riddhima Patllollu

iSchool to present research at TPRC 2025

iSchool faculty, staff, and students will participate in the Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC 2025), which will be held from September 18–20 in Washington, DC.

Get to know Simit Shah, MSIM student

Simit Shah worked as a consultant for Deloitte in India before enrolling in the MSIM program to strengthen his analytical and business skills. Over the summer, he applied the knowledge gained from his iSchool coursework during an internship as a technology risk consultant at EY.

Simit Shah

School of Information Sciences

501 E. Daniel St.

MC-493

Champaign, IL

61820-6211

Voice: (217) 333-3280

Fax: (217) 244-3302

Email: ischool@illinois.edu

Back to top