Computer Science Faculty Recruiting Colloquium
Sabirat Rubya
University of Minnesota
ABSTRACT:
More than 23 million people in the United States (and a lot more from all over the world) suffer from substance use disorders. Following a crisis medical treatment intervention (e.g., detox and rehab), recovery must be maintained through an ongoing program that includes continued abstinence, peer support, and other mental health interventions. The most common approach to practicing recovery maintenance is by participating in “12-step” programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Most of my work target this crucial phase of the recovery process where people are particularly vulnerable to relapse and where various forms of social support have been found to be particularly helpful. My work combines mixed-methods formative investigations and social computing design techniques (including crowdsourcing, machine learning, and pattern detection) to understand the needs of these recovery communities and create tools to enhance their reach.
In this talk, I discuss my research that involves working closely with members of recovery communities, understanding what technologies may work for them, and providing implications for research and design in these and other sensitive online contexts. I’ll present my work on (1) investigating peer support and anonymity in online recovery communities, (2) developing new interface technologies to enhance their reach to peer support, and (3) deploying and rigorously evaluating the effectiveness of the developed technologies. I’ll also discuss the application and the effectiveness of human-in-the-loop information retrieval approaches for building technologies in the context of recovery. Finally, I’ll conclude with the implications of my work in a broader domain of mental health, and in designing and implementing technologies that have a meaningful impact on health informatics.
BIO:
Sabirat Rubya is a PhD candidate in the Computer Science & Engineering Department at the University of Minnesota. She is an HCI researcher with a goal to design systems that facilitate peer support in critical health contexts. Her current research focuses on recommending and designing mobile health technologies for people in recovery from substance use disorders (e.g., alcoholism and addiction). She analyzes social ties and anonymity in online recovery communities, with implications of research and design in these and other sensitive online contexts. She has won the SIGCHI graduate student research competition award for her research. She completed her BSc in Computer Science from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
