Beyond Who and What: Data Driven Approaches for User Characterization

Social media and technology have drastically transformed the social and information networks around us. They have impacted how we communicate with others, search for information, and even how we express our personal opinions. Further, in this era of big data, not only are the online services collecting vast variety of user data, but we, as users, are also readily divulging significant amounts of information. Together, massive datasets obtained from diverse sources such as organizations and user generated content give us the opportunity to explore and understand complex behavior of both individuals and communities. This proposal aims at designing generalizable and scalable data-driven frameworks to gain a deeper understanding of the users, explain their actions and preferences, and infer personal traits. The proposed models will enable us to move beyond asking the conventional questions of who and what, and reveal answers about how and why. Given the varying digital persona of users motivated by their personal preferences and social attributes, we characterize users in two distinct domains: online health and peace studies. The models are designed to solve various real-world challenges to maximize their broader impact.