New Funding Announced for I2S' Center for Cyber-Social Dynamics

The Institute for Information Sciences’ (I2S) Center for Cyber-Social Dynamics (CCSD) has received a Research and Education Innovation (REI) award for funding from the Kansas Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR. The National Science Foundation (NSF) uses EPSCoR to increase research capacity in traditionally under-funded regions of the country—like Kansas.

The CCSD at I2S is focused on the interaction between internet technologies and society. REI awards are for research education initiatives that contribute to the NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 project titled Adaptive and Resilient Infrastructures Driven by Social Equity (ARISE). The REI award to CCSD, at a level of $73,291, will fund the center’s work on “Advancing Fairness in Machine Learning: A Multidisciplinary Design Approach” from the period of July 1, 2024, to August 31, 2025. 

The project, led by CCSD director John Symons, focuses on the pervasive issue of bias and epistemic injustice in data science, with a focus on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems from the perspective of addressing the problem of epistemic injustice. “We hope to do this, in part, by developing a sequence of courses that bring together insights from diverse fields such as computer science, ethics, social sciences, and law,” says David Tamez, assistant research professor at I2S and one of the project's primary investigators. “Through an inclusive and multidisciplinary approach, this project seeks to develop innovative strategies for designing ML/AI systems that are fair, transparent, and equitable. Further, we believe that the best way to reach this alignment between AI and established ethical principles is through a humanist approach informed by technical expertise.”