Enhancing Disaster Resilience through Sociotechnical Approaches: Insights from Social Media Analytics for Crisis Events
CME Department Seminar
December 5, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM America/Chicago
Location
ERF Room 1047 and Via ZOOM
Address
842 W. Taylor St., Chicago, IL 60607
Calendar
Download iCal FilePresenter: Christin Salley, PhD, Virginia Tech
Location: ERF Room 1047 and Via ZOOM
Meeting ID: 880 5967 0773
Passcode: A0DpxAPP
Abstract: Disasters continue to disrupt public infrastructure systems and pose significant risks to community well-being. Effective disaster response and recovery hinge on the timely acquisition of situational knowledge and clear communication between the public and emergency services. This seminar explores sociotechnical approaches to advancing community resilience, grounded in two recent studies that leverage artificial intelligence (AI), specifically natural language processing (NLP), to enhance emergency management capabilities.
The first study presents a semi-supervised machine learning framework that fuses data from social media platforms (e.g., Twitter) and community-based apps (e.g., Waze) to improve contextual insights into crisis event detection. Through the case of Hurricane Ian and other major storms, the study demonstrates how transfer learning, topic modeling, and bias mitigation protocols can expand situational awareness, support resource allocation, and accelerate emergency response. The second study investigates the dynamics of flood risk communication by analyzing message content, sentiment, and emotion across organizational entities and affected communities during flood events in nine U.S. states. Using NLP techniques, the research assesses the degree to which organizational messages align with community needs and identifies strategies to enhance two-way communication and preparedness.
Together, these studies illustrate the potential of AI- and data-driven methods to inform infrastructure decision-making and promote more inclusive and responsive disaster communication. This work contributes to the ongoing evolution of sociotechnical systems aimed at building equitable and resilient communities in the face of growing climate-related hazards.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Salley’s research focuses on developing equitable infrastructure systems and services within urban environments to enhance community resilience, specifically in the context of disaster and crisis management. Her work explores applications of cutting-edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (e.g., Natural Language Processing) and centers on understanding societal systems and addressing ethical considerations, with a particular focus on vulnerable populations. Employing a transdisciplinary, sociotechnical approach, she leverages mixed methods techniques for data analysis and problem-solving. Previously, she was a Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow in the Michigan Institute for Data & AI in Society at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in civil engineering from Georgia Tech, her M.S.E. in civil engineering from Johns Hopkins, and her B.S. in fire protection engineering from the University of Maryland. Her overarching goal is to foster innovation, advance responsible research practices, and create a lasting positive impact on society.
Date posted
Dec 1, 2025
Date updated
Dec 1, 2025