The Bringing together Language and Behavior for Large-scale Analytical Breakthroughs Laboratory (Blablablab)

Software

• M3: Multi-modal, multilingual, multi-attribute demographic inference. You can also get it as a pip-installable package!
• GenderPerformr: Infers gender performance for any kind of online username, name, handle, etc.
• Social Support: Infers how supportive, neutral or unsupportive is an online reply
• Citation Function: Infers why an author cited another paper

Data

• Citation Function Data: labeled training data of citations by their rhetorical function.
• Gender-Labeled Online Conversations: 100M online dyadic conversations from Reddit, Wikipedia, and StackExchange, labeled by gender salience. To respect the privacy and dignity of individuals, this dataset is available for non-commercial research purposes online; please email the lab PI to obtain access.
• Reply Supportiveness Ratings: ~9K ratings of replies to authors rated on a 5-point Likert scale for how supportive (or unsupportive) they are. Items are balanced across Reddit, Wikipedia, and StackExchange interactions, as well as by length (equal amounts of short, medium, and long comments).

Graduate students

Prospective PhD graduate students interested in joining Blablablab should apply to one of our affiliated programs. We typically accept most students through UMSI though we occasionally will accept students who apply to the Computer Science division of EECS.

Current U-M graduate students of any program are welcome to email about potential research collaborations. Blablablab is highly interdisciplinary and we especially enjoy working with social scientists.

Undergraduates

Current U-M undergraduates who want to do research during the school year should contact the lab and describe a bit about their background (e.g., have you done research before? what classes have you taken? why do you want to research?) and what kind of project they want to be on. Scanning our current list of publications will give you a sense of what topics we research and can be a good jumping off point for a new project. We often have a few spots for the year for all levels of experience but please know we expect at least 10 hours per week of research. Research takes time and it will be difficult for you (or anyone) to make progress with just a few hours per week.

Undergraduates interested for summer research opportunities should look for an announcement sometime in the early to mid-winter period with a description of the projects. We have hosted lots of wonderful undergraduate students throughout the summer. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to contact us early, as we often can apply for special summer funding opportunities (e.g., through the B.A. Rudolph Foundation or the NSF) to provide financial support for your summer stay.

Visiting Students

We often have self-funded visiting students for the summer and (rarely) during the academic year. In these cases, usually the student has some prior research experience, similar research interests, and (due to luck) there is a current project going on in the Blablablab where they would be a good fit. If you are a self-funded student who wants to come join us for the summer, you should send an email in February or March before the summer that

• Describes your research experience and state what parts are relevant to the work going on in the Blablablab.
• Clearly states why you want to work in the Blablablab.
• Discusses what you want to get out of a summer research experience and what you want to learn — this helps us make sure that the trip is a success for you as well.

We don't consider self-funded visiting students as "free labor" and strongly want to make sure that your stay is productive and a success for your career goals.

Postdocs

We have no openings at this time for postdocs. :(