Students

Diplomacy Lab: Assessing Mis/Disinformation was a student-led project conducted over two semesters, with two sets of students, sharing the overarching goal of developing resources for assessing information.

Fall 2022

Students in HONR 399: Diplomacy Lab expanded tools and materials developed by the initial Spring 2022 cohort as part of course conducted in the John Martinson Honors College. Students in this cohort expanded the policy report and added information literacy training modules for Watch officers. Students also continued to develop a machine-learning algorithm to identify mis/disinformation and created tutorials for open-source tools. This cohort met with a representative from the U.S. Department of State.

Spring 2022

The first cohort of Diplomacy Lab at Purdue was hand selected from over 60 applicants. Students were organized into two teams, a dashboard team and a policy team. Meeting with the U.S. State Department over the course of the Spring semester, this cohort developed a prototype of a dashboard to assess information posted on social media and generated some ideas for a website and toolkit. The Spring 2022 cohort was guided by two teaching assistants who were critical in supporting and organizing the project: Rebecca Liu (Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Law and Society, and Political Science) and Jasmin Towns (Political Science and Philosophy). .

Professors

Matthew Hannah

• Assistant Professor of Information Studies (Purdue University)
• Dr. Hannah's research focuses on conspiracy theories and online extremism and has been published in First Monday, Social Media + Society, and Debates in the Digital Humanities.
• "Diplomacy Lab offered students a unique opportunity to apply their course work to a real-world challenge. I have been so impressed by the dedication and passion of Purdue's students in tackling real-world information challenges."

Bethany McGowan

• Associate Professor of Information Studies (Purdue University)
• Professor McGowan's research focuses on health literacy and health equity. Her current research, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, examines the influence of health mis/disinformation on information-seeking behavior in African American communities.
• "I'm passionate about providing undergraduate research experiences, and the opportunity to collaborate with the State Department to supervise student-driven research focused on identifying mis/disinformation on social media and its influence on American diplomacy has been wonderful."