Research

Research Experience

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

Research focus: online extremism, conspiracy theories, incels, terrorist ideology

Graduate Research Assistant

Tetherless World Constellation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (January 2021 - May 2023)

Advisor: Dr. James Hendler, PI: Dr. Maria Chang

Project: DARPA Knowledge-directed Artificial Intelligence Reasoning Over Schemas (KAIROS) program

• Developed research contributing to alternative schema detection as part of a collaboration between Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IBM Research for the DARPA KAIROS program.

GrADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Language-Endowed Intelligent Agents Lab, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (August 2018 - December 2020)

Advisor: Dr. Marjorie McShane

• Expanded corpus development methodologies in service of building a practical and theoretical understanding of metaphor usage in natural language. Research ascribes to the theoretical framework of Ontological Semantics (Nirenburg & Raskin, 2004) and resulted in a freely distributed corpus of non-literal language.

Publications

Klein, E., & Golbeck, J. A Lexicon for Studying Radicalization in Incel Communities. In Proceedings of ACM 16th ACM Web Science Conference 2024 (WebSci ’24), May 21–24, 2024, Stuttgart, Germany. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3614419.3644005

Klein, E. (Working paper). Building and Validating Multiword Expression Lexicons with a Case Study on Language and Conspiracy Theories.

Klein, E., Hendler, J., & Golbeck, J. (Under Review). “It is what it is” and “Everything happens for a reason”: Psychologically Charged Language Patterns on Online Conspiracy Sites.

Klein, E., & Hendler, J. (2022). Loaded Language and Conspiracy Theorizing. In Proceedings Of The 44th Annual Conference Of The Cognitive Science Society. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4wd9b270

Klein, E. (2020). Corpus Development Methodologies in Service of a Microtheory of Metaphor. (Thesis). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, United States of America. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2457317117?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses

McShane, M., Klein, E. (2019). Pursuing Actionable Interpretations of Non-Literal Language. Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems, pp. 453-471. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Pursuing-Actionable-Interpretations-of-Non-Literal-McShane-Klein/646e600ddf5f52a17dbf78665e6fd476d25b00db

Kallipoliti, L. (2018). History of Ecological Design. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.013.144. (Klein, E. is acknowledged for written and research contributions.)

Oksiuta, Z. Berendoschot, O., Chalfant, C., Cimino, S., de la Paz, A., Dotson, A., Feng, Z., He, W., Klein, E., Conlin, K., Laue, L., Lo, V., Mevada, N., Muscari, C., Sawai, H., Skulski, J., Smith, A., Vinson, E., Wang, J., & Wang, Z. (2018). Architectural Evolutions Between Art and Science: Zbigniew Oksiuta & Students of Rensselaer Architecture. Exhibition at Galeria Arsenal Elektrownia, Bialystok, Poland.

Leitão, C., Baumann, P., & Su, M. (2017, publication forthcoming). An Interactive Platform for the Civic Forum: Situations Reports on Architecture and Urbanity. (Klein, E. is a project author in workshop publication.)

Kallipoliti, L., Theodoridis, A. Klein, E., Starkloff, C., Zhang, R., Tieu LaFave, M., Wong, E.(2016). GUINEA PIGS: A Minor History of Engineered Man. Installation and exhibit at 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial. Istanbul, Turkey.

Douglis, Evan. (2014). Influx. Rensselaer School of Architecture. (Klein, E. is a student work contributor and publication designer.)

Presentations

Loaded Language and Conspiracy Theories on Reddit and Parler. (2023, September). Presented Stanford Internet Observatory’s Trust and Safety Research Conference, Palo Alto, California.

Loaded Language and Conspiracy Theories on Reddit and Parler. (2023, July). Presented at 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society in Sydney, Australia.

Loaded Language and Conspiracy Theorizing. (2023, February). Dissertation Defense and Cognitive Science Department Talk, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Slides available here.

Loaded Language and Conspiracy Theorizing. (2022, July). Presented at 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society in Toronto, Canada. View the poster here.

Loaded Language and Conspiracy Theorizing. (2022, February). Candidacy Talk and Cognitive Science Department Talk, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Towards Methods for Conspiracy Theory Detection in Natural Language. (2021, March). Cognitive Science Department Talk, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Developing a Microtheory of Metaphor. (2020, April). Cognitive Science Department Talk, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bXED0ZTEhbMz5U9loE5KH3Oqn8dVp1bc/view.

Pursuing Actionable Interpretations of Non-Literal Language. (2019, August). Presented at Seventh Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems in Boston, MA, U.S.A. View the poster here.

Methods for Tackling Non-Literal Language. (2018, March). Cognitive Science Department Talk, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

What’s Next? A ‘Positions Series’ Student-Led Discussion Event. (2018, November), Invited Talk. School of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. www.arch.rpi.edu/2018/10/f19-positions-series-emily-klein/

Towards a Collective Intelligence: A Framework for Social Scalability. (2018, May). Peck Prize Thesis Presentation. Rensselaer School of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Silicon to Cerebellum. (2017, December). Art installation and interactive performance. Rensselaer School of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Cryptoscapes: Topographies of Surveillance. (2017, October). Robert S. Brown Traveling Fellowship exhibit and presentation. School of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

An Interactive Platform for the Civic Forum: Situations Reports on Architecture and Urbanity. (2017, July.) Workshop presentation at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa.

Teaching

Relevant Professional Experience