Pamela Wisniewski, a Flowers Family Fellow in Engineering and associate professor of computer science has been appointed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Science and Technology (ISAT) Study Group beginning in August 2024.
The group brings 40 of the brightest scientists and engineers together to identify new areas of development in computer science and information technology and to recommend future possible research directions.
The ISAT Study Group was established by DARPA in 1987 to support its technology offices and provide continuing and independent assessment of the state of advanced Information Science technology as it relates to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Wisniewski joins the group as a leading researcher in the area of human-computer interaction. Her work lies at the intersection of social computing and privacy. She leads the Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab (STIR) in the School of Engineering.
Wisniewski’s role on the ISAT Study Group will be to bring her human-centered computing expertise to shape the future research directions when envisioning complex sociotechnical systems to support U.S. armed forces, citizens, and applications for national defense and infrastructure.
“I am honored to serve my country in this capacity as artificial intelligence and other state-of-the-art advances will have a significant impact on how humans perform their jobs and protect our country in the years to come,” said Wisniewski. “Understanding the impact of these technologies on our future generations, as well as designing these technologies to best meet their needs will be imperative to the welfare of our nation.”
Wisniewski’s work on adolescent online safety has been recognized nationally and internationally by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Netherland’s Down to Zero Alliance on combatting the online sexual exploitation of children, and most recently, by the White House’s Biden-Harris Task Force on Kids Online Health and Safety. She is an ACM Senior Member, Computing Research Association CCC Council Member, and a non-resident fellow of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
Wisniewski has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications and won multiple best papers (top 1%) and best paper honorable mentions (top 5%) at ACM SIGCHI conferences. Her research has been featured by popular news media outlets, including Scientific American, ABC News, NPR, Psychology Today, and U.S. News and World Report. She is the recipient of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious CAREER Award for her innovative, teen-centric approach to adolescent online safety, and was the first computer scientist to ever be selected as a William T. Grant Scholar for her work on reducing digital inequality in youth outcomes.