Dr. Shuyuan Mary Ho was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for her project, “I-Corps: Market Impact Identification of Dyadic Attribution Model for Disposition Assessment Using Online Games.”

The $50,000 grant started December 14th, 2014 and will run until May 2015.

Dr. Ho researches human-computer interactions and focuses heavily on cyber insider threats and online identity theft. She has developed the framework for a dyadic attribution model to assess human trustworthiness in sophisticated online communication environments. In 2010, she founded the iSensor Lab, which dedicates socio-technical research related to human factors in cyberspace.

“We are investigating the market viability of a technology that represents a trustworthiness inference engine that works by analyzing online communications,” said Dr. Ho.

“This software application can be thought of as a form of artificial intelligence for detecting changes in user’s motivation and trustworthiness. Using a variety of mechanisms, this system creates a statistical user profile and learns about user’s information behavior patterns based on language and dialogue with other users in social media communication.”

“The technology can be deployed in an online discussion forum or an online game environment. Using big-data analysis techniques and a strategic set of datapoints, the technology can then alert administrative staff on undesirable or unusual communicative intent that matches specific patterns associated with pre-identified and profiled behaviors. The technology will perform several levels of analysis before a security alert is brought to the attention of an IT Security professional.”

For more on Dr. Ho’s research, visit her personal site.