RESEARCHER: Gloria Mark


This is a multi-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation, in order to understand the role that IT can play in helping people to be resilient when their environment is disrupted. Environmental disruptions such as natural catastrophes or wars are not new. What is new is that we are now living in an age where communication and data-sharing technologies are nearly ubiquitous for many people in much of the world. This study uses the methodologies of semi-structured telephone interviews triangulated with analysis of Internet archives to understand how people use technology as a resource to develop resilient environments. To date, over 80 interviews have been conducted with people who experienced wars in Israel and Iraq. The results of this research will be published in the top ACM conference Computer-Supported Collaborative Work and are currently under review in two other top ACM conferences.