sohyeon hwang

recent

2026/07 - i was interviewed for an episode of "Looks Like New", a public radio show (on KGNU) + podcast produced by MEDLab at CU Boulder 📻 you can catch it online or on Apple Podcasts + Spotify!
2026/07 - i attended Wikimania Paris! hopefully my first of many more Wikimanias to come 🌐📖✍️ i had the honor of presenting a keynote in the Research Track. thank you so much to the organizing team for inviting me 🤗

past (+)

2026/05 - our project OpenCourier (whitepaper + CHI'26 poster), a protocol envisioning worker-owned delivery platforms, has been featured on the Platform Cooperativism blog 🌐✍🏼 i must note that this project has been led by the wonderful Yuhan Liu 🤗
2026/04 - i had the pleasure of co-organizing an all-star panel on protocols for the DeCenter's Annual Spring Conference 👥💬
2026/04 - just got back from CHI 2026 where I presented our new paper laying out visions for community-run social media 🤝 edit: we also shared this at FediForum Spring 2026! i couldn't make it, but my collaborators helped run a discussion :)
2026/03 - three (!) papers accepted to CSCW 2026 🎊 many kudos and thanks to all the first authors who led the work :) [1] [2] [3]
2026/03 - attended the online dispute systems workshop in Boulder, CO hosted by the Media Economies Design Lab and have come back feeling very inspired / motivated ☺️
2026/01 - i was recently interviewed by a student-run podcast called Internet Governance Explained 🎤 you can listen to it here!
2026/01 - this semester i'll be co-teaching a project-based seminar course + many exciting guest speakers with Prof. Andrés Monroy-Hernández in EGR 373: Designing Protocols: Technology, Governance, and Collective Action.
2026/01 - our piece ``governing together'' [arXiv] on community-run social media has been accepted to CHI! see you in Barcelona 📝☺️
2025/11 - i attended the Early Career Colloquium at ASIS&T in DC!
2025/10 - our paper on community governance and privacy on the Fediverse [edit: doi] got a Best Paper Honorable Mention Award 🏅🌼 I was able to present in-person in Bergen, Norway :)
2025/10 - helped co-organize a fun unconference-style regional meet-up, CSCW Northeast 2025!
2025/09 - co-organized a 4s open panel session on the risks of "social model" collapse with amazing Prof. Kaylea Champion☺️
2025/07 - i will be joining Complexity Global School run by SFI as an ad hoc faculty! excited to see folks in the Andes :)
2025/06 - more pre-prints ^^ one [1] led by MA student Tolulope Oshinowo on the politics of open protocols; and another [2] led by MA student Owen X. Zhang (soon starting a PhD at Georgia Tech) on blocklists on the fediverse!
2025/05 - we just put out a pre-print for a study on the relational origins of online rules 📝 it's been multiple years in the making, so i am especially excited to have it out in the world.
2025/05 - i had a wonderful time being part of the "Designing Digital Ecosystems for Collaboration, Innovation, and Community-Building" Working Group at the Santa Fe Institute ⛰️
2025/05 - three(!) manuscripts went in for CSCW 2026 🎉 two on decentralized social media (led by Master's students!), and one on online community governance :)
2025/03 - i recently gave my CITP fellow talk on governance frictions on social media. recording here!
2025/03 - paper with Priyanka Nanayakkara and Yan Shvartzshnaider accepted for CSCW 2025 :D [pre-print]
2025/02 - i'm excited to share that i've recently joined this year's cohort of Siegel Research Fellows 🤗
2025/02 - new pre-prints up! [1] on documentation in FLOSS and [2] on privacy and community governance 📝📝
2025/01 - dissertation officially out on proquest📓
2025/01 - work on documentation and FLOSS contributions led by Matt Gaughan has been accepted at ICA2025 and CHASE2025 🙌
2024/11 - i officially started my postdoc at princeton! if you are in the tri-state area, please reach out + i would love to hang
2024/09 - i'll be giving a talk in dialogue with the awesome Seth Frey for a round of Community Dialogues 👥💬 on 09/27
2024/08 - passed my dissertation defense :) officially emerging from dissertation hermitude as a fresh "dr" 🐣
2024/06 - my defense date is set for 08/29 ⚔️🙉 there's a public portion + it will be hybrid, reach out if you'd like to join :D
2024/04 - a scoping review 🔭 on computational approaches to address online harassment has been conditionally accepted for DIS2024. edit: here is the doi📝 + it received an award🏅🤠
2024/04 - new CSCW publication out 📝🔓 on bot adoption in Discord communities - i'll be talking about it at ICA and CSCW this year 🫡
2024/03 - really excited to share that i'll be joining the center for information technology policy at princeton 🐯 as a postdoctoral fellow after my phd, working with Andrés Monroy-Hernández!
2024/02 - right before ICA, I'll also be at Wikipedia and/as data to discuss reflective practices around Wikipedia data :)
2024/01 - work on bot adoption by Discord communities accepted to ICA 2024; will be at gold coast in-person to present (and surf 🏄)
2024/01 - officially passed my qualify exams + successfully defended my dissertation prospectus! all-but-dissertation now 🤠
2023/12 - two early lil' xmas presents 🎄 from the review cycle!

> a paper on third-party bot adoption (with Charles Kiene, Serene Ong, Aaron Shaw) was accepted for CSCW2024 (after a **long** review journey 🙈🎉);
> and, a new project on underproduction risks and project governance formalization led by Matt Gaughan and Kaylea Champion was accepted on the short paper / poster track at SANER2024 😊

2023/11 - had a lot of fun at the CSCW Southeast meet-up hosted by wonderful folks at Emory and Georgia Tech!
2023/09 - super thrilled to have been invited to talk at the Wikimedia Research Showcase! i got to share my work on rules and rule-making with aaron :3 the recording is here
2023/08 - won't be at CSCW in-person, but I *will* be attending this excellent workshop on community collaborative approaches virtually! lmk if you are too :3
2023/07 - accepted to share work-in-progress @ the PrivaCI Symposium in Toronto in September
2023/05 - got to share my work on rules and rule-making on Wikipedia at WikiWorkshop 2023!
2023/04 - super excited to be part of the CSST Summer Research Institute this year (6/27 update: didn't make it due to thunderstorms grounding flights 😞)
2023/04 - the book club i co-organize is reading Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson this quarter, starting in May. get in touch if you wanna join! 📚
2023/03 - my small communities study with Jeremy was briefly referenced in a cool washington post article ✨
2023/03 - going to CHI2023 in Germany, to participate in the Design X Policy workshop and talk about a budding project on privacy policies on the Fediverse with Priyanka Nanayakkara and Yan Shvartzshnaider :3 (edit: here is our workshop submission)
2023/01 - the book club i co-organize is reading Obfuscation: A User's Guide for Privacy and Protest by Finn Brunton and Helen Nissenbaum this quarter. please get in touch if you wanna join us 📚
2022/11 - ran an extremely brain-sparkling CSCW2022 workshop on the ethics of online volunteer labor with a lot of really awesome people ✨🧠✨
2022/11 - work with Aaron Shaw on rules across language editions of Wikipedia has been accepted to MPSA2023 🙌
2022/10 - video of my talk session at GLF2022 is up: [youtube]
2022/10 - an undergrad student i work with, Emily Zou, presented a poster at the HCI+D Lambert Conference here at northwestern! i also had a poster :)
2022/08 - gave a talk + hung out during strategy workshopping as a 'knowledge steward' @Governance Learning Forum 2022 (GLF2022) 👩‍💻📋
2022/08 - my recent work on Wikipedia rule-making got covered in the Wikipedia Signpost 📰 :D [link]
2022/07 - work with Agnes Horvat and Daniel Romero as a full-length manuscript has been accepted for ICWSM2023! 📝 pre-print here :3
2022/06 - was at ICWSM2022 in Atlanta! thanks to the old roni, my first in-person conference in grad school
2022/05 - delighted to have been part of the inaugural bonfire panel chat hosted by the d/arc server + in convo with Zac Parker, Robyn Caplan, and Joseph Seering! thank you Hibby Thach for hosting and the invite :)
2022/04 - a project with Agnes Horvat and Daniel Romero on information retention across multiple platforms has been accepted as a poster at ICSSI2022 in DC ~and~ IC2S2 in Chicago this summer
2022/03 - swung by COM481 at University of Washington taught by Benjamin Mako Hill and Kaylea Champion as a guest speaker/lecture.
2022/02 - i've been invited to chat about my work on small communities at a meeting with Grouplens, a research group at University of Minnesota.
2022/02 - did a guest lecture recently :) a short one on thinking through multiple levels of online governance for COMM_ST378 at Northwestern (disclaimer: I am the TA hehe).
2022/02 - my lab hosted the first of (hopefully many) workshops in dialogue with awesome practioners from industry, non-profits, and communities! i gave a talk. you can see more here.
2022/01 - i dropped by to do a virtual Q&A chat about my research work on heterogeneity in online governance with some great people involved with moderation at/on discord. no recording, but i'm really excited to have been invited and had a lovely time :D thank you Joseph Seering for organizing this!
2021/11 - the first manuscript from a project that i've been working on with my advisor Aaron for a long time has been accepted to ICWSM2022!
2021/11 - dropped by University of Washington's 590: HCI Seminar to discuss my work on small communities on Nov 5. thank you Stefania Druga and Galen Weld for inviting me :)
2021/10 - my CSCW2021 paper with Jeremy Foote on small communities received a "best paper honorable mention award" 🏆 :D
2021/08 - i'll be joining the science & comedy show Uncontrolled Variables's first COVID-era-in-person show on Sept 2 to talk about researching online governance! thanks to Jack Bandy for surprise-referring me to the organizers!
2021/08 - my MA thesis is approved by my wonderful committee! i will officially have a master's in fall 2021 🙂
2021/07 - a paper i wrote with Jeremy Foote just got accepted to CSCW 2021 🙌 my ~first full conference paper~, so i'm p excited to talk about it; the pre-print is available here.
2021/06 - participated in social computing systems camp!
2021/01 - the book club i've co-organized since last summer is now under the fold of the HCI+D center here at Northwestern :)
2020/05 - presented an extended abstract at CI2020.
2020/03 - just heard that I've received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! 🎉
2019/09 - began my PhD program in the MTS program at Northwestern University.
2018/12 - the Emma Bowen Foundation wrote a little profile about my experience as a fellow :)