Lynnette Hui Xian NG

Exploring Creativity


I am a PhD student in Societal Computing at the Department of Computer Science in Carnegie Mellon University, supervised by Prof Kathleen Carley. My research interests are computational social sciences and social media analysis motivated by disinformation and misinformation in the online space.
I am a Knight Scholar and a DSTA Overseas PhD Scholar (Singapore). I received my Bachelors in Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science of National University of Singapore, where I won the NUSS medal for Outstanding Achivement. My Final Year Project was on 3D Makeup Projection, supervised by Prof Terence Sim.



PhD Thesis

My thesis proposal looks at the Bot-Human Nexus on Social Media. I presented this talk on 28th September 2023. The thesis proposal document is here.
I am in my 4th year, working on this thesis proposal and have published a few papers within it.

My Heart Transplant Story

I was born with Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM, or HOCM when obstructive) is a condition in which the heart becomes thickened without an obvious cause. It wasn't genetic. But it means that I was easily breathless, and had lots of trouble doing even the most minute stuff like climbing a flight of stairs. I battled this for 29 years, the pain, the medications. One day in Feb 2023, I wasn't responding to the normal medications. On March 16 2023, my heart went into an abnormal rhythm for 39 days. After much failed medication attempts, I was admitted to UPMC Presbyterian hospital. There, I was blessed to receive a heart transplant. It is a whirlwind story, and I am still writing it. Here it goes
Please help my transplant costs!!
If you would like to make a donation to help my transplant costs, you may use Venmo @Lynnette-Ng with last 4-digits as 1254, or PayPal @lynnettenghx

What I do outside research

I play the violin. I play Violin II for CMU's University Orchestra.
I also love to explore the city of Pittsburgh and the wider United States. Even more so after discovering bits and pieces that are so amazing of a normal human. Check out some of my explorations on my Instagram!

Research Interests

News

Feb 2024           Paper Assembling a multi-platform ensemble social bot detector with applications to US 2020 elections published at Social Network Analysis and Mining! Read it here
Feb 2024           Presented Cyborgs for strategic communication on social media published at Big Data and Society! Read it here
Jan 2024           Presented Challenges for Real-Time Toxicity Detection in Online Games at ACM Ethical Games Conference Watch the talk here here
Nov 2023           Paper It Takes Two to Negotiate: Modeling Social Exchange in Online Multiplayer Games is accepted at CSCW 2024! Read the preprint here here
Sept 2023           I'm scheduled to do my thesis proposal on the 28th September 2023. Read more here.
Sept 2023           Paper Do you hear the people sing? Comparison of synchronized URL and narrative themes in 2020 and 2023 French protests is published in Frontiers of Big Data. I wrote this paper in the cardiac ICU because I thought my life was at an end. Read it here here
Aug 2023           Paper Popping the hood on Chinese balloons: Examining the discourse between U.S. and China-geotagged accounts is published on First Monday Read it here here
Jan 2023           Paper A combined synchronization index for evaluating collective action social media is published in Applied Network Science Read it here
Nov 2022           Paper Is my stance the same as your stance? A cross validation study of stance detection datasets has recieved the Best PhD Paper Award 2022 for the journal Information Processing and Management! Read about the award here here
Nov 2022           Paper A combined synchronization index for evaluating collective action social media is published at Applied Network Science! Read it here here
Nov 2022           Paper Is my stance the same as your stance? A cross validation study of stance detection datasets is published at Information Processing & Management! Read it here here
Sept 2022           Paper Cross-platform information spread during the January 6th capitol riots is published at Social Network Analysis and Mining! Read it here here
Aug 2022           Paper From curious hashtags to polarized effect: profiling coordinated actions in indonesian twitter discourse is published at Social Network Analysis and Mining! Read it here here
Jun 2022           Paper Pro or Anti? a Social Influence Model of Online Stance Flipping is published at IEEE Transactions of Network Science and Engineering! Read it here here
Jun 2022           Paper Online Coordination: Methods and Comparative Case Studies of Coordinated Groups across Four Events in the United States is published at WebSci2022! Read it here
May 2022           Paper Coordinated through a Web of Images: Analysis of Image-based Influence Operations from China, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela accepted at PhoMemes 2022!! Read it here here
Dec 2021           Paper Using Graph-Aware Reinforcement Learning to Identify Winning Strategies in Diplomacy Games accepted at AAAI Student Abstract 2022!! Preprint here here
Sep 2021           Paper Will You Dance To The Challenge? Predicting User Participation of TikTok Challenges accepted at ASONAM 2021!! Preprint here here
Sep 2021           Paper How does fake news spread? Understanding pathways of disinformation spread through APIs accepted at Policy & Internet!!
Aug 2021           Paper CIGLI: Conditional Image Generation from Language & Image accepted at ICCV21 CLVL!
July 2021           Paper Bot-Based Emotion Behavior Differences in Images During Kashmir Black Day Event accepted at SBP-BRiMS 2021! Read it here here
June 2021           Paper Flipping Stance: Social Influence on Bot's and Non Bot's COVID Vaccine Stance accepted at KDD-MIS2! Preprint here here
May 2021           Paper A Synchronized Action Framework for Responsible Detection of Coordination on Social Media accepted at MAISoN Workshop on Responsible Social media mining! Preprint here here
Nov 2020           Paper Analysing Public Opinion and Misinformation in a COVID-19 Telegram Group Chat accepted at IEEE Internet Computing! Read it here
Nov 2020           Paper Visualizing Vitriol: Hate Speech and Image Sharing in the 2020 Singaporean Elections accepted at Social-cybersecurity in Times of Crisis and Change ! Read it here
Oct 2020           Paper Bot Activity in the 2020 Singaporean Elections: A Social Cybersecurity Analysis accepted at SBP-BRIMS 2020! Read it here
Oct 2020           Paper The Coronavirus is a Bioweapon: Analysing Coronavirus Fact-Checked Stories accepted at SBP-BRIMS 2020! Read it here
Oct 2020           Paper I miss you babe: Analyzing Emotion Dynamics During COVID-19 Pandemic accepted at NLP+CSS 2020! Read it here
Aug 2020           System Demonstration paper Cross-Model Image Annotation Platform with Active Learning posted on arXiV. Read it here
Jun 2020           Recieved the Best Paper Award for workshop paper Is This POFMA? Analysing public opinion and misinformation in a COVID-19 Telegram group chat. at ICWSM CySoc workshop.
Mar 2020           Recieved full PhD fellowship from DSTA, Singapore!
Feb 2020           Accepted an offer for a PhD in Societal Computing at Carnegie Mellon University! Thank you for seeing my potential!

News Features

Mar 2023 Scientific American
Interviewed on Scientific American about misinformation and disinformation patterns Read it here
Aug 2023 New Scientist
Armies of bots battled on Twitter over Chinese spy balloon incident for paper Deflating the Chinese balloon: types of Twitter bots in US-China balloon incident
It was also featured on Reddit's r/Science! Read it here!!
Aug 2023 CMU School of Computer Science
Standardized Data Set Annotations Could Aid in Detecting Social Media Sentiments for paper Is my stance the same as your stance? A cross validation study of stance detection datasets
Jan 2022 Input Magazine
Have researchers cracked the code to TikTok virality?for paper Will you dance to the challenge?: predicting user participation of TikTok challenges