me
Hi! I'm Sijia Xiao. I'm a fifth year PhD candidate at the School of Information, UC Berkeley. I'm co-advised by Niloufar Salehi and Coye Cheshire. My research focuses on human-computer interaction and social computing. I'm particularly interested in how to empower online harm survivors with alternative justice frameworks such as restorative justice. Another line of my work is about people's sensemaking of conspiracy theories and misinformation.

I received a Master of Human-Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech in 2019 and a B.S. of Computer Science at Peking University in 2017.

Email: xiaosijia [at] berkeley (dot) edu
Google Scholar



I am actively exploring job opportunities this year. Please feel free to contact me with any relevant opportunities or to learn more about my skills and experience.

Publications

Xiao, Sijia, Shagun Jhaver, and Niloufar Salehi. "Addressing Interpersonal Harm in Online Gaming Communities: The Opportunities and Challenges for a Restorative Justice Approach." ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (2023). [paper]

Xiao, Sijia, Coye Cheshire, and Niloufar Salehi. "Sensemaking, support, safety, retribution, transformation: A restorative justice approach to understanding adolescents’ needs for addressing online harm." In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-15. 2022. [paper] [presentation video] [Twitter thread]

Xiao, Sijia, Coye Cheshire, and Amy Bruckman. "Sensemaking and the Chemtrail Conspiracy on the Internet: Insights from Believers and Ex-believers." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5, no. CSCW2 (2021): 1-28. [paper] [presentation video] [BBC News] [12News]

Xiao, Sijia, Danaë Metaxa, Joon Sung Park, Karrie Karahalios, and Niloufar Salehi. "Random, messy, funny, raw: Finstas as intimate reconfigurations of social media." In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems, pp. 1-13. 2020. Best Paper Honorable Mention (%5) [paper] [presentation video]

Liu, Weichen, Sijia Xiao, Jacob T. Browne, Ming Yang, and Steven P. Dow. "ConsensUs: Supporting multi-criteria group decisions by visualizing points of disagreement." ACM Transactions on Social Computing 1, no. 1 (2018): 1-26. [paper]

Mahyar, Narges, Weichen Liu, Sijia Xiao, Jacob Browne, Ming Yang, and Steven P. Dow. "ConsesnsUs: Visualizing points of disagreement for multi-criteria collaborative decision making." In Companion of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, pp. 17-20. 2017. [paper]



Public Speaking and Recognitions

05/25/2023: Attended the SecHOPE Workshop (IEEE Workshop on Security for Harassment Online, Protections, and Empowerment) and presented my work on empowering online harm survivors with a sensemaking process.

04/17/2/23: Successfully proposed my dissertation and now a phd candidate.

03/08/2023: Presented my work on empowering online harm survivors with a sensemaking process at the PhD Reception hosted by the School of Information, UC Berkeley.

11/17/2022: I spoke about my work on the chemtrail conspiracy with 12News. Read the article here: "Water conspiracy theories are coming to Arizona. Here's why experts say they will flood the state with lies".

10/21/2022: Hosted an online workshop on using restorative justice approach to addressing online harm. Event detail here.

10/11/2022: Guest lecture for INFO 101 : Introduction to Information Studies @ UC Berkeley.

08/23/2022: My work on conspiracy theories has been cited by BBC News. Read the article here: "Why do aircraft leave contrails in the sky?".

05/01/2022 - 05/06/2022: Attended CHI2022 and presented my work on using restorative justice approach to understanding adolescents' needs for addressing harm. See the paper, presentation video, and a Twitter thread that summarizes my work.

10/27/2021: Presented my paper on conspiracy theories at CSCW 2021. Check out the paper and the presentation video.

11/12/2021: Presented my work on restorative justice at the Yale SMGI Community Driven Governance Workshop. Awesome workshop!

10/19/2021: Spoke as panelist about restorative justice approaches to addressing online harm @ Othering & Belonging Conference, UC Berkeley.

10/16/2021: Moderated the Gaming & Media panel @ InfoCamp2021, Berkeley I School.

09/2021: Invited talk on conspiracy paper @ Lausanne Alignment Club, EPFL.

11 /2020: Guest lecture for INFO 402 : Gender, Race, And Information Technology, University of Washington.

09/2020: Guest lecture for COM 367: Multimedia Production and Culture, North Carolina State University.

05/2020: Invited talk @ fempower.tech.

05/2020: Attended CHI and presented my finsta paper (video).

04/2020: My CHI paper won the CHI best paper honorable mention award!

04/2020: Invited talk on finstas paper @ Grouplens, University of Minnesota.

03/2020: Attended Berkeley PhD reception and talked about my finsta paper (video). Last in-person presentation before the pandemic.