Jennifer Golbeck is a Professor in the College of Information Studies and Director of the Social Intelligence Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received an AB in Economics and an SB and SM in Computer Science at the University of Chicago, as well as a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park. Professor Golbeck began studying social media from the moment it emerged on the web, and she is one of the world’s foremost experts in the field. Her research has influenced industry, government, and the military. She is a pioneer in the field of social data analytics and discovering people’s hidden attributes from their online behavior, and she is a leader in creating human-friendly security and privacy systems.
Professor Golbeck is the author of several print and online publications, including the books Analyzing the Social Web, Online Harassment, Introduction to Social Media Investigation: A Hands-on Approach, and Computing with Social Trust. She is a frequent contributor on NPR. Her TED Talk on what social media “likes” can reveal was featured in TED’s 2014 Year in Ideas.