Isabel Murdock

I'm a fourth-year PhD student in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. I am co-advised by Osman Yağan and Kathleen M. Carley and perform research under the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organization Systems (CASOS) and the Center for Informed Democracy & Social - cybersecurity (IDeaS) at CMU.

Prior to starting my PhD, I completed the IMB program in electrical and computer engineering at CMU, receiving a B.S. in 2019 and an M.S. in 2020.

Contact: iem [-at-] andrew.cmu.edu

Research Interests

My main research focus is the multi-platform spread of information over social media. In particular, my current work investigates the spread of political content over Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. Using empirical insights from these studies, I am working on developing agent-based models of information diffusion through social media interactions to ultimately simulate the impacts of cross-platform interventions.

Conference Talks and Publications

I. Murdock, K. M. Carley, and O. Yağan
"An Agent-Based Model of Reddit Interactions and Moderation", 2023 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), Nov. 2023. (Best Paper Award)
I. Murdock, K. M. Carley, and O. Yağan
"PRESENTATION: Temporal Characteristics of Reddit Discussions Across Three Political Events", 2023 Center for Informed Democracy & Social-cybersecurity (IDeaS) Conference, Jul. 2023.
I. Murdock, K. M. Carley, and O. Yağan
"Identifying cross-platform user relationships in 2020 U.S. election fraud and protest discussions", Online Social Networks and Media (OSNEM), vol. 33, pp. 100245, Jan. 2023.
I. Murdock, K. M. Carley, and O. Yağan
"POSTER: Cross-Platform Linking and Spread of 2020 U.S. Election-Related URLs", CRA-WP Grad Cohort for Women 2022, Apr. 2022.
I. Murdock, L. Ng, T. Magelinski
"DEMO: Twitter v2 Conversation and Timeline Collector and v2 to v1 Tweet Converter", IDeaS Center Knight Research Network Tool Demonstration Day 2021, Jul. 2022.
I. Murdock, K. M. Carley, and O. Yağan
"PRESENTATION: Multi-Platform Analysis of 2020 U.S. Election Fraud and Protest Related Posts", 2021 Center for Informed Democracy & Social-cybersecurity (IDeaS) Conference, Jul. 2021.

Teaching

18-755: Networks in the Real World, Lead TA (F22, F23), TA (F20).
15-122: Principles of Imperative Computation, TA (Summer 19).
16-311: Introduction to Robotics, TA (S18).
33-142: Physics II for Engineering and Physics Students, EXCEL Leader (F16, S17, F17, S18).

Outreach

I love sharing my passion for engineering with kids and aim to inspire diverse audiences to pursue STEM fields. In 2020, I helped develop an after-school STEM program for Voices Against Violence, an organization focused on serving youth from economically and socially under-served backgrounds within the Pittsburgh community. As the initiative grew into a weekly, after-school robotics program, I continued to serve as a lead instructor for the program for three years. I have also enjoyed participating in CMU SWE high school and middle school days as a workshop host for societal computing and a volunteer, giving local girls the chance to learn about different engineering disciplines. In 2023, I co-organized the Pittsburgh Women in Mathematics and Computing Symposium to help encourage undergraduate women to pursue graduate degrees in math and computing-related fields. For these and other activities, I was awarded the Commitment to DEI Award from the ECE department at CMU in 2022.

Awards

Bob Lee Gregory Fellowship (2023-2024)
Boeing Scholarship (2022-2023)
Knight Fellowship (2021-2023)
Intel SWE Graduate Scholarship (2021, 2023)
Commitment to DEI Award (2022)