Austin P. Wright

Civic AI + Social Computing researcher

I’m a Ph.D. student in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech advised by Polo Chau.

My research in Civic AI aims to solve problems intersecting machine learning, human-computer interaction, and public policy, by using a strong principled basis in both mathematical and human centered principles to actualize the potential of new technologies for social good with usability, interpretability, and fairness.

Education

Fall 2019 —PresentPh.D. in Machine Learning
PresentGeorgia Institute of Technology
Advisor: Duen Horng (Polo) Chau

Fall 2018 —Fall 2019Msc. in Computing with Specialism in Machine Learning
Fall 2019Imperial College London
Thesis: Comparison of Syntactic and Semantic Representations of Programs in Neural Embeddings
Degree Class: Merit

Fall 2014 — Spring 2018B.A. in Physics and Computer Science
Spring 2018University of California, Berkeley
Overall GPA: 3.63 Physics GPA: 3.59 CS GPA: 3.87

Research Experience

Summer 2020 —PresentNASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Remote
PresentIntern, Data Visualization
Mentor: Scott Davidoff
Joint work between NASA JPL, Caltech, and Art Center creating interactive data visualizations for current scientific research.

Fall 2019 —PresentCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, Chamblee, GA
PresentORISE Fellow, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
Mentor: Steve Sumner
Introduced natural language processing and data visualization tools for detecting emerging trends in the opiod epidemic.

Fall 2019 —PresentGeorgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
PresentGraduate Research Assistant, School of Computational Science and Engineering
Advisor: Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
Member of the Polo Club of Data Science where we bridge and innovate at the intersection of data mining and human-computer interaction to synthesize scalable, interactive, and interpretable tools that amplify human’s ability to understand and interact with big data.

Summer 2018Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
Graduate Researcher, Dr. G. Robert Keepin Nonproliferation Summer School
Mentor: Karen Miller
Designed and built machine learning data analysis models and visualization dashboards for facility characterization, and spent fuel measurement using disparate stream data fusion.

Winter 2017 —Spring 2018Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, Berkeley, CA
Spring 2018Undergraduate Affiliate, Complex Systems Group
Mentor: Bethany Goldblum
Developed multiplex network modeling for nuclear nonproliferation and multisensor security systems, with a focus on machine learning in particular deep recurrent neural networks.

Summer 2017CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, Berkeley, CA
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
Mentor: Chris Hoffman
Lead creation of novel photogrammetry pipeline for Phoebe A Hearst Museum of Anthropology in collaboration with the CITRIS Pacific Research Platform.

Honors and Awards

2022Centers for Disease Control Excellence in Quantitative Sciences Award
Internal CDC honor in recognition of ongoing work detecting emerging trends on social media

2020GT-GSU Public Interest Technology (PIT) Fellow
The Southeast Region PIT Fellows program supports collaborations between technologists and social scientists centered around the historic and continued equity challenges of the Southeast region and provide a model for regional PIT work focused on community challenges.

2019Oak Ridge Institute of Science Education Fellowship
Research Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), managed by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) under an agreement between the CDC and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

2019Georgia Tech President's Fellowship
For "exemplary levels of scholarship and innovation"

2017U.S. Department of Energy Network Science and Nuclear Nonproliferation Challenge 1st Prize
For novel deep recurrent neural network architectures to infer facility operations.

2016Pioneers in Engineering Outstanding Mentor Award
For dedication to my students and enthusiasm in teaching

Publications

Lessons from the Development of an Anomaly Detection Interface on the Mars Perseverance Rover using the ISHMAP Framework
Austin P. Wright, Peter Nemere, Adrian Galvin, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Scott Davidoff
Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces. 2023.
Project BibTeX

			@inproceedings{wright2023lessons,
  title={Lessons from the Development of an Anomaly Detection Interface on the Mars Perseverance Rover using the ISHMAP Framework},
  author={Wright, Austin P and Nemere, Peter and Galvin, Adrian and Chau, Duen Horng and Davidoff, Scott},
  booktitle={Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces},
  pages={91--105},
  year={2023}
}
		

Alteration history of Séítah formation rocks inferred by PIXL x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, and multispectral imaging on Mars
Michael M Tice, Joel A Hurowitz, Abigail C Allwood, Michael WM Jones, Brendan J Orenstein, Scott Davidoff, Austin P. Wright, et. al
Science Advances. 2022.
Project BibTeX

			@article{tice2022alteration,
  title={Alteration history of S{\'e}{\'\i}tah formation rocks inferred by PIXL x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, and multispectral imaging on Mars},
  author={Tice, Michael M and Hurowitz, Joel A and Allwood, Abigail C and Jones, Michael WM and Orenstein, Brendan J and Davidoff, Scott and Wright, Austin P and Pedersen, David AK and Henneke, Jesper and Tosca, Nicholas J and others},
  journal={Science Advances},
  volume={8},
  number={47},
  pages={eabp9084},
  year={2022},
  publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science}
}
		

Neurocartography: Scalable automatic visual summarization of concepts in deep neural networks
Haekyu Park, Nilaksh Das, Rahul Duggal, Austin P Wright, Omar Shaikh, Fred Hohman, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2021.
Project BibTeX

			@article{wright2021detection,
  title={Detection of emerging drugs involved in overdose via diachronic word embeddings of substances discussed on social media},
  author={Wright, Austin P and Jones, Christopher M and Chau, Duen Horng and Gladden, R Matthew and Sumner, Steven A},
  journal={Journal of Biomedical Informatics},
  volume={119},
  pages={103824},
  year={2021},
  publisher={Academic Press}
}
		

Detection of emerging drugs involved in overdose via diachronic word embeddings of substances discussed on social media
Austin P. Wright, Christopher M Jones, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, R Matthew Gladden, Steven A Sumner
Journal of Biomedical Informatics. 2021.
Project BibTeX

			@article{wright2021detection,
  title={Detection of emerging drugs involved in overdose via diachronic word embeddings of substances discussed on social media},
  author={Wright, Austin P and Jones, Christopher M and Chau, Duen Horng and Gladden, R Matthew and Sumner, Steven A},
  journal={Journal of Biomedical Informatics},
  volume={119},
  pages={103824},
  year={2021},
  publisher={Academic Press}
}
		

RECAST: Enabling User Recourse and Interpretability of Toxicity Detection Models with Interactive Visualization
Austin P. Wright, Omar Shaikh, Haekyu Park, Will Epperson, Muhammed Ahmed, Stephane Pinel, Diyi Yang, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
24th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. 2021.
Project PDF BibTeX

			@article{10.1145/3449280,
  author = {Wright, Austin P. and Shaikh, Omar and Park, Haekyu and Epperson, Will and Ahmed, Muhammed and Pinel, Stephane and Chau, Duen Horng (Polo) and Yang, Diyi},
  title = {RECAST: Enabling User Recourse and Interpretability of Toxicity Detection Models with Interactive Visualization},
  year = {2021},
  issue_date = {April 2021},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  address = {New York, NY, USA},
  volume = {5},
  number = {CSCW1},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3449280},
  doi = {10.1145/3449280},
  abstract = {With the widespread use of toxic language online, platforms are increasingly using automated systems that leverage advances in natural language processing to automatically flag and remove toxic comments. However, most automated systems, when detecting and moderating toxic language, do not provide feedback to their users, let alone provide an avenue of recourse for these users to make actionable changes. We present our work, RECAST, an interactive, open-sourced web tool for visualizing these models' toxic predictions, while providing alternative suggestions for flagged toxic language. Our work also provides users with a new path of recourse when using these automated moderation tools. RECAST highlights text responsible for classifying toxicity, and allows users to interactively substitute potentially toxic phrases with neutral alternatives. We examined the effect of RECAST via two large-scale user evaluations, and found that RECAST was highly effective at helping users reduce toxicity as detected through the model. Users also gained a stronger understanding of the underlying toxicity criterion used by black-box models, enabling transparency and recourse. In addition, we found that when users focus on optimizing language for these models instead of their own judgement (which is the implied incentive and goal of deploying automated models), these models cease to be effective classifiers of toxicity compared to human annotations. This opens a discussion for how toxicity detection models work and should work, and their effect on the future of online discourse.},
  journal = {Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact.},
  month = {apr},
  articleno = {181},
  numpages = {26},
  keywords = {toxicity detection, intervention, natural language processing, content moderation, interactive visualization}
}
		

A Comparative Analysis of Industry Human-AI Interaction Guidelines
Austin P. Wright, Zijie J. Wang, Haekyu Park, Grace Guo, Fabian Sperrle, Mennatallah El-Assady, Alex Endert, Daniel Keim, Duen Horng Chau
IEEE VIS, Workshop on TRust and EXpertise in Visual Analytics. 2020.
Project PDF BibTeX

			
@misc{wright2020comparative,
  title={A Comparative Analysis of Industry Human-AI Interaction Guidelines}, 
  author={Austin P. Wright and Zijie J. Wang and Haekyu Park and Grace Guo and Fabian Sperrle and Mennatallah El-Assady and Alex Endert and Daniel Keim and Duen Horng Chau},
  year={2020},
  eprint={2010.11761},
  archivePrefix={arXiv},
  primaryClass={cs.HC}
}
		

Mapping Researchers with PeopleMap
Jon Saad-Falcon, Omar Shaikh, Zijie J. Wang, Austin P. Wright, Sasha Richardson, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
IEEE Visualization 2020. 2020.
PDF BibTeX Honorable Mention Best Poster Research

			
@misc{saadfalcon2020mapping,
title={Mapping Researchers with PeopleMap}, 
author={Jon Saad-Falcon and Omar Shaikh and Zijie J. Wang and Austin P. Wright and Sasha Richardson and Duen Horng Chau},
year={2020},
eprint={2009.00091},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.DL}
}
		

RECAST: Interactive Auditing of Automatic Toxicity Detection Models
Austin P. Wright, Omar Shaikh, Haekyu Park, Will Epperson, Muhammed Ahmed, Stephane Pinel, Diyi Yang, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
The eighth International Workshop of Chinese CHI. 2020.
Project PDF BibTeX

			
@article{wright2020recast,
title={RECAST: Interactive Auditing of Automatic Toxicity Detection Models},
author={Austin P. Wright and Omar Shaikh and Haekyu Park and Will Epperson and Muhammed Ahmed and Stephane Pinel and Diyi Yang and Duen Horng (Polo) Chau},
year={2020},
eprint={2001.01819},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.CL}
}
		

The nuclear network: multiplex network analysis for interconnected systems
Bethany L. Goldblum, Andrew W. Reddie, Thomas C. Hickey, James E. Bevins, Sarah Laderman, Nathaniel Mahowald, Austin P. Wright, Elie Katzenson, Yara Mubarak
Applied Network Science volume 4, Article number: 36 (2019). 2019.
Project PDF BibTeX

			
@article{goldblum2019nuclear,
title={The nuclear network: multiplex network analysis for interconnected systems},
author={Goldblum, Bethany L and Reddie, Andrew W and Hickey, Thomas C and Bevins, James E and Laderman, Sarah and Mahowald, Nathaniel and Wright, Austin P and Katzenson, Elie and Mubarak, Yara},
journal={Applied Network Science},
volume={4},
number={1},
pages={36},
year={2019},
publisher={Springer}
}
		

Smart Monitoring of Nuclear Facilities: Implementation Concepts and Development Status
Paul Michael Mendoza, Karen Ann Miller, Emily Michele Casleton, Janette Rose Frigo, Rosalyn Cherie Rael, Kendra Lu Van Buren, Jonathan Lee Woodring, Vlad Henzl, Austin P. Wright
LA-UR-19-26663. 2019.
PDF BibTeX

			
@misc{mendoza2019monitoring,
title={Smart Monitoring of Nuclear Facilities: Implementation Concepts and Development Status},
author={Paul Michael Mendoza, Karen Ann Miller, Emily Michele Casleton, Janette Rose Frigo, Rosalyn Cherie Rael, Kendra Lu Van Buren, Jonathan Lee Woodring, Vlad Henzl, Austin Peter Wright},
year={2019},
publisher={Los Alamos National Lab.}
}
		

Disparate Data Integration for Advanced Facility Monitoring
Karen Ann Miller, Kendra Lu Van Buren, Janette Rose Frigo, Max Zeyen, Joshua P. Sackos, Paul Michael Mendoza, Austin P. Wright
IAEA Symposium on International Safeguards. 2018.
Project PDF BibTeX

			
@article{millerdisparate,
title={DISPARATE DATA INTEGRATION FOR ADVANCED FACILITY MONITORING},
author={MILLER, KAREN A and VAN BUREN, KENDRA L and FRIGO, JANETTE R and ZEYEN, MAX and SACKOS, JOSHUA P and MENDOZA, PAUL M and WRIGHT, AUSTIN P}
author={Goldblum, Bethany L and Reddie, Andrew W and Hickey, Thomas C and Bevins, James E and Laderman, Sarah and Mahowald, Nathaniel and Wright, Austin P and Katzenson, Elie and Mubarak, Yara},
journal={IAEA Symposium on International Safeguards},
year={2018},
}
		

Press

2023"New Algorithm Perseveres in Search for Data Anomalies on Mars", Georgia Tech College of Computing

2022"Mars rover digs up intriguing clues in the hunt for life beyond Earth", The Washington Post

2020"Making Crime Data More Accessible and User Friendly", Georgia Tech College of Computing

Talks

A Comparative Analysis of Industry Human-AI Interaction Guidelines
2020IEEE Vis Workshop on TRust and EXpertise in Visual Analytics
Video

MORGANA - a flight rules authoring, validating, and evaluation tool
2020JPL Data Visualization Internship Program, Final Presentation, Virtual
Video

RECAST: Interactive Auditing of Automatic Toxicity Detection Models
2020The eighth International Workshop of Chinese CHI, Virtual

Canary Project Review
2018Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D) University Program Review (UPR)., Ann Arbor, Michigan

Canaries in a Nuclear Mine: Complexity Science for Nuclear Security
2017Institute for Nucelar Materials Managment, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Mentoring

2019 — 2021Omar Shaikh
2021B.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Natural Language Processing and Social Computing
Sigma Xi Best Undergraduate Research Award

2020 — 2021Jon Saad-Falcon
2021B.S./M.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Data Visualization
Honorable Mention Best Poster Research

References

Dr. Polo Chau, Associate Professor
School of Computational Science and Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA, USA
cc.gatech.edu/~dchau/

Dr. Steven A. Summner, Senior Advisor for Data Science and Innovation
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atalnta, GA, USA
www.cdc.gov/injury/pressroom/fullbios_subjectmatterexperts/bio_StevenSumner

Dr. Scott Davidoff, Human-Computer Interaction Researcher
Human Interfaces Group
NASA Jet Propulsion Lab
Pasadena, CA, USA
scottdavidoff.com

Dr. Scott Jacques, Associate Professor
Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA, USA
aysps.gsu.edu/profile/scott-jacques/

Contact

Austin P. Wright apwright@gatech.edu
Coda Tech Square Georgia Tech
756 W Peachtree St NW Atlanta, GA 30308