Headshot of Dharma Dailey

Dharma Dailey is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Computing & Software Systems Division of the University of Washington Bothell School of STEM where she teaches User Research, Interaction Design, and Intro to Programming. As faculty affiliate at the eScience Institute at the University of Washington, Dailey investigates how human-centered design can be incorporated into data intensive research. She has mentored dozens of scientists in exploring the social dimensions of their research and collaborates with educators across the U.S. who are bringing “Data for Good” into the learning experiences they foster, for example, helping to share better practices for running university-based Data Science for Social Good programs.

Her PhD research focused on the use of social media during crises with special attention to how information of value to crisis-affected communities is produced and diffused. Starting in the 1990s, Dailey has been immersed in community-based participatory design and public policy research aimed at empowering low-income communities in the U.S. in the areas of community-controlled, community-accountable media and communications. Her research has informed federal, state, and local policy. Clients have included the Federal Communications Commission, the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Foundation, and many others. With UWB students and educators in partnership with a few awesome and invested community advisors, she initiated Dear Digital Equity, a community-based learning project that raises the visibility of digital equity in Washington State.

Full CV [PDF]

Recent Work

Dharma Dailey and Anshul Tambay. Selected Year One Learnings of the Scientific Software Engineering Center at University of Washington. Invited talk for Schmidt Sciences Virtual Institute for Scientific Software, October 2, 2024. 

Anissa Tanweer and Dharma Dailey. All well and good: A retrospective on the quest to do “good” with data. The 2024 quadrennial joint meeting of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), July 17, 2024.

Dharma Dailey and Sabrina Roach. Modernizing How We Assess Broadband Affordability. Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, March 7, 2024.

Dharma Dailey. Mapping Our Data for Good Journey. Plenary Talk for the Workshop on Data for Good in Education (D4G4ED), Trinity Christian College and Midwest Big Data Innovation Hub, June 2, 2023.

Dharma Dailey, Anissa Tanweer, and Sarah Stone. Integrated Support for Socially Impactful Cross-Disciplinary Science: The University of Washington Data Science for Social Good Program. Poster. Academic Data Science Alliance Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, 2023.

Robin Mays and Dharma Dailey. So You Want to Build an App?: Guidance for Better Partnering for Better Humanitarian Technology Design. Global Disaster Preparedness Center of the American Red Cross. 2022.

Dharma Dailey, Sarah Stone, Anissa Tanweer and the Data for Good Organizer Network. 2021, November. Data for Good Growth Map(s): Decision Points for Designing A University-Based Data for Good Program. University of Washington. 

Dissertation

Dharma Dailey. 2020. Social Media as Local Crisis Infrastructure: The Interconnected Work of Citizens, Responders, and Journalists in the Social Media Crowd. University of Washington.

Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers

Robert Soden, Nick Lalone, Dharma Dailey. July 2021. A Patent Application for NEXTGEN Flood Early Warning System. Proc. ACM Human Computer Interaction, Vol. 5, No. GROUP, Article 216.

P. M. Krafft, Meg Young, Michael Katell, Jennifer E. Lee, Shankar Narayan, Micah Epstein, Dharma Dailey et al. An Action-Oriented AI Policy Toolkit for Technology Audits by Community Advocates and Activists. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, pp. 772-781.

Michael Katell, Meg Young, Dharma Dailey, Bernease Herman, Vivian Guetler, Aaron Tam, Corinne Binz, Daniella Raz, and P. M. Krafft. Toward Situated Interventions for Algorithmic Equity: Lessons from the Field. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAT* '20), January 27–30, 2020, Barcelona, Spain.

Li Zeng, Dharma Dailey, Owla Mohamed, Kate Starbird, Emma Spiro. 2019. Detecting Journalism in the Age of Social Media: Three Experiments in Classifying Journalists on Twitter. The 13th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM-2019). 

Abbas Ganji, Tom Wilson, Dharma Dailey, Sonia Savelli, and Mark Haselkorn. Cause and Effect: A Qualitative Analysis of Obstacles to Information Sharing During a Regional Disaster Exercise. 2019. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) – València, Spain May 2019. Zeno Franco, José J. González and José H. Canós, eds.

Kate Starbird, Dharma Dailey, Owla Mohamed, Gina Lee, Emma S. Spiro. 2018. Engage Early, Correct More: How Journalists Participate in False Rumors Online during Crisis Events. CHI 2018, April 21–26, 2018, Montreal, QC, Canada.

Dharma Dailey, Robert Soden, and Nick Lalone. 2018, Jan. Becoming a Crisis Informatics Response Technician: A Design Fiction. ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP 2018).  

Dharma Dailey and Kate Starbird. 2017. Social Media Seamsters: Stitching Platforms & Audiences into Local Crisis Infrastructure. ACM 2017 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2017). Honorable Mention Award.

Dharma Dailey, John Robinson, and Kate Starbird. 2016. Sharing Food, Gathering Information: The Context and Visibility of Community Information Work in a Crisis Event. In iConference 2016 Proceedings. 

Elodie Fichet, John Robinson, Dharma Dailey, and Kate Starbird. 2016. Eyes on the Ground: Emerging Practices in Periscope Use during Crisis Events. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM).

Dharma Dailey and Kate Starbird. 2014. Visible Skepticism: Community Vetting after Hurricane Irene. Short Paper. 2014 Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Conference (ISCRAM 2014), Penn State University.


Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters  

Benjamin Mako Hill, Dharma Dailey, Richard T. Guy, Benjamin Lewis, Mika Matsuzaki, and Jonathan T. Morgan. Democratizing Data Science: The Community Data Science Workshops and Classes. In Big Data Factories: Scientific Collaborative Approaches for Virtual Community Data Collection, Repurposing, Recombining, and Dissemination. N. Jullien, S. A. Matei, & S. P. Goggins (Eds.) New York, New York: Springer Nature. Forthcoming.

Dharma Dailey and Kate Starbird. 2016, December. Addressing the Information Needs of Crisis-Affected Communities: The Interplay of Legacy Media and Social Media in a Rural Disaster. In The Communications Crisis in America, and How to Fix It. Friedland L. and Lloyd, M. editors. Palgrave MacMillan. 

Dharma Dailey and Kate Starbird. 2014. Journalists as Crowdsourcerers: Responding to Crisis by Reporting with a Crowd. J of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Special Issue: Crisis Informatics and Collaboration, Dec 2014, 23(4-6), 445-481.

Kate Starbird, Dharma Dailey, Ann Hayward Walker, Thomas M. Leschine, Robert Pavia, and Ann Bostrom. 2014. Social Media, Public Participation, and the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal.

Alison Powell, Amelia Bryne, and Dharma Dailey. 2010. The Essential Internet: Digital Exclusion in Low-Income American Communities. Policy and Internet. Volume 2, Issue 2, August 2010 pp 159-190.

Dharma Dailey and Alison Powell. 2011. Toward a Taxonomy for Public Interest Communications Infrastructure. In Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere. Napoli, P. and Aslama, M. editors. New York: Fordham University Press.

Laura Forlano and Dharma Dailey. 2008. Community Wireless Networks as Situated Advocacy. In The Situated Advocacy Pamphlet Series. Khan, O., Scholz, T. and Shepard, M. editors. New York: The Architectural League of New York.


Lightly Reviewed Papers, Posters, and Workshops

Michael Katell, Meg Young, Peaks Krafft, Bernease Hermann, Dharma Dailey, Corrine Bintz, Vivian Guetler, Vivian, Daniella Raz, and Aaron Tam. A Toolkit for Algorithmic Equity and Community Empowerment. Poster. iConference 2020.

Dharma Dailey, Katya Yefimova, Owla, Mohamed, Lunden Harris, Preethi Varadharajan, and Kate Starbird. Cumulative Cues: Identifying Journalists on Twitter. Poster presented. Computation + Journalism 2017.

Jonathan Morgan, Dharma Dailey, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. Community Data Science Workshops. Workshop paper presented. For Hacking and Making at Time-Bounded Events: Current Trends and Next Steps in Research and Event Design Workshop. In Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference Companion on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. ACM. 

Dharma Dailey and Kate Starbird. 2016. Beyond Official: Government Information Work through Personal Accounts. Poster. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference Companion on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing. ACM. 

Dharma Dailey and Kate Starbird. 2015. It's Raining Dispersants: Collective Sensemaking of Complex Information in Crisis Contexts. Poster presented. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference Companion on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing ACM 155-158.

Dharma Dailey. 2015. Crowdsourcerering: Infrastructuring Crowd Work in Crisis Contexts. For Information Technology and City Life Workshop.  Workshop Abstract. 18th ACM Conference Companion on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing ACM.

Kelly Koerner, Darma Dailey, Michael Lipp, Heidi Connor, and Rohit Sharma. 2012. Experience Report: Data visualization for psychotherapy progress tracking. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication (SIGDOC '12). ACM 213-218.

 

Research Reports and Technical Writing (selected)

Dharma Dailey, Sarah Stone, Anissa Tanweer and the Data for Good Organizer Network. 2021, November. Data for Good Growth Map(s): Decision Points for Designing A University-Based Data for Good Program. University of Washington. 

Federal Communications Commission’s Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council's (CSRIC V) Working Group 2 Emergency Alerting Platforms. 2016, September. Social Media & Complementary Alerting Methods – Recommended Strategies & Best Practices Final Report & Recommendations

Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. 2014, September. Maritime Operational Information Sharing Analysis Prepared for Department of Homeland Security Interagency Operations Center, the National Maritime Intelligence-Integration Office, and the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment.

Kate Starbird, Dharma Dailey, Ann Hayward Walker, Thomas M. Leschine, Robert Pavia, and Ann Bostrom. 2014. Sense making through Twitter during the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill. Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC), University of New Hampshire. Durham, New Hampshire, January 2014.

Dharma Dailey, Amelia Bryne, Alison Powell, Joe Karaginis, and Jaewon Chung. 2010. Broadband Adoption in Low-Income Communities.  Brooklyn, NY: Social Science Research Council.

Dharma Dailey 2009. Making Broadband and Cellphones Affordable for All: Proposed Reforms to the Lifeline Program of the Universal Service Fund. The Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange.

Dharma Dailey.  2009. A Field Report: Media Justice Through the Eyes of Local Organizers. The Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange.

Dharma Dailey.  2009. Criminal Charges: Excessive Prison Phone Rates Take a Toll on Innocent Families. The Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange.

Dharma Dailey. 2008. The Tools They Use: Online and Offline Collaboration for Media Activists. 2008.  In Whose Media? Our Media!: Strategic Communications Tools to Reform, Reclaim and Revolutionize the Media. The Spin Project, San Francisco.

Dharma Dailey and Pete Tridish. 2003.  Official Comments to the FCC for Prometheus Radio Project on Media Ownership Studies.

Dharma Dailey and Tracy Siska. 1999. FCC’s Interference Argument Grounded: Commercial Radio, Not MicroPower, Is More Frequent Hazard for Aviation. Published in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s Extra! January/February 1999.