Francesca Spezzano, an assistant professor in the computer science department, served as program chair of the 2019 international conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and Association for Computing Machinery Aug. 27-30 in Vancouver, Canada.
ASONAM is an interdisciplinary venue that brings together researchers and practitioners from a broad variety of fields to promote collaborations and exchange of ideas and practices on social network analysis and mining along with applications.
Spezzano also organized and moderated a panel at the conference on “Social Influence in Our Society,” discussing topics and challenges on social influence research and social influence impacts in our current society, including people’s behavior during crises (e.g., due to natural disasters), health, elections, misinformation and privacy, as well as possible mitigation strategies.