Spencer Williams
PhD Candidate
Human Centered Design and Engineering
University of Washington

UW CFAR eHealth Scientific Working Group – Work in Progress Meeting
Thursday, June 17, 2021
5:30–6:30 p.m. CT
Attend via Zoom 

What does it take to use social media effectively as an academic? What are the common pitfalls and challenges? In this talk, I’ll provide an overview of different social media platforms and what they’re used for, some strategies for using Twitter in particular as a means of networking and research dissemination, and some common challenges and techniques to deal with those challenges. These insights will be based on a synthesis of current literature on social media, perspectives from my own research, and personal experience.

Spencer Williams is a PhD candidate in Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington. He is co-advised by Gary Hsieh and Katharina Reinecke. Spencer’s work is focused on understanding how scientists communicate their findings to the public, as well as how scientific news is disseminated, understood, and engaged with on social media. In particular, his current focus is on building tools to provide better insights about researchers’ “invisible audiences” online, to better tailor the way they discuss their work. Spencer’s work has been published in top HCI conferences like CSCW and CHI.