I’m looking for PhD students interested in studying how citizens use social media to bring about social change in their communities to join the Collaboration and Social Media Lab <http://casmlab.org> at Illinois Tech. We’re currently studying hyperlocal social networks, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and related social media platforms in order to understand social media's role in civic engagement and to reduce cyberbullying. We use interviews, participatory design, machine learning, and natural language processing in our research. Students in the lab will enroll in the PhD program in Technology and Humanities <http://humansciences.iit.edu/humanities/programs/graduate-programs/phd-technology-humanities>. More about the program is below, and you can learn more about our social media and civic engagement project on the lab’s website <http://www.casmlab.org/research/>. This project is supported by the National Science Foundation <http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1525662&HistoricalAwards=false> and includes at least one year of full tuition and stipend support for qualified students. ------ Applications for the PhD Program in Technology and Humanities at the Illinois Institute of Technology are now being accepted! The application deadline for Fall 2017 is January 31, 2017. Applicants interested in research in any of the following areas are encouraged to apply: - Civic impacts of social media - Digital design and production - Ethics and technology - Games and gaming - Gender and sexuality in technology - History of technology - Participatory culture and social media - Rhetoric of technology - Science, technology, and society The program is educating a new type of scholar - someone who will contribute creative and critical work and advance the understanding of the relationships between people and technologies. All students take courses in the Humanities Department’s core areas of communication, information, and media studies, history, linguistics, and philosophy and work closely with faculty in multiple disciplines. To learn more about our department, visit http://humansciences.iit.edu/humanities. Most students receive tuition support and stipends through teaching and research assistantships. Interested students should contact faculty <http://humansciences.iit.edu/humanities/faculty> they are interested in working with and visit the Graduate College admissions site <http://admissions.iit.edu/graduate/apply?_ga=1.51920431.703649370.1445540042> . ----- Please circulate widely, and let me know if you have students who may be interested. Thanks, Libby -- Libby Hemphill Assistant Professor of Communication and Information Studies Illinois Institute of Technology http://www.libbyh.com http://www.casmlab.org