C. Estelle Smith, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the CU Boulder Department of Information Science, working with Brian Keegan and Chenhao Tan. She’ll be working to support an NSF-sponsored grant to study genealogical relationships, behavioral sequences, and spiritual + social support in online communities.
Estelle completed her PhD in Computer Science with a social computing emphasis at GroupLens Research at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She was co-advised by Professors Loren Terveen (Department of Computer Science & Engineering) and Susan O’Conner-Von (Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing). Her dissertation explores spiritual and social support for users of Online Health Communities such as CaringBridge, where patients and caregivers can turn for support as they navigate life-threatening illness. Her interdisciplinary research has also touched on topics like Human-Centered Machine Learning and Science Communications/Public Engagement in HCI (CV available here).
Estelle was president of the Computer Science Graduate Student Association (CSGSA) at the University of Minnesota from Fall 2020-Summer 2021. During this time, she masterminded a complete organizational restructuring of CSGSA and lead a student body of over 450 graduate students through an unprecedented shift into all-virtual experiences of grad school caused by the COVID19 pandemic. She successfully advocated for a complete remodel of CSGSA’s graduate student lounge space (which will be opened when it becomes safe to do so), launched a virtual community on Slack, successfully facilitated numerous in-person and virtual events, and helped to re-invigorate the social fabric of the Department.