Dataviz Research Team
Primary Investigators
Megan Stubbs-Richardson, Ph.D.
Primary Investigator
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Sujan Anreddy, Ph.D.
Co-PI
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Terri Hernandez, Ph.D.
Co-PI
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Megan Stubbs-Richardson, Ph.D.
Primary Investigator
Dr. Megan Stubbs-Richardson is an Assistant Research Professor at the Social Science Research Center (SSRC) of Mississippi State University. She directs the Data Science for Social Sciences Laboratory at the SSRC. She is leading one of the laboratory's missions to create open-source social media-based infrastructure projects to broaden participation in social media research. Megan has been a PI or Co-PI on projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), and the Department of Defense (DoD). She has been conducting social media data analyses at the SSRC since 2012. In her research, she uses digital data to identify crime patterns and trends alongside examining digital data’s role in crime prevention. She serves or has served as PI for the COPE-ID Data Viz projects, which initially provided almost 15 million posts about how people coped during the pandemic on 10 social media platforms. The database is now paired with the data visualization and analytics tool, allowing users to draw down data samples more easily and blend social and computational scientific research methods to examine the data. 
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8636-497XContribution to Project: PI Dr. Stubbs-Richardson (Sociology Social Scientist) directs the Data Science for Social Sciences (DS3) laboratory and has worked with social media data since 2012. Stubbs-Richardson often collaborates with SBE scientists and computer scientists to access and integrate data science and social science methods across large volumes of social media data to examine various social problems. For this initiative, she has provided oversight of the two awards (NSF #2031246 and #2318438) while also leading the development of the user guides for the COPE-ID's database and data visualization tool and associated methods, such as the topic modeling user guides. She is also working toward broadening research participation in social media research by sharing presentations with potential users and then evaluating the effectiveness of the COPE-ID data visualization tool.
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8636-497XContribution to Project: PI Dr. Stubbs-Richardson (Sociology Social Scientist) directs the Data Science for Social Sciences (DS3) laboratory and has worked with social media data since 2012. Stubbs-Richardson often collaborates with SBE scientists and computer scientists to access and integrate data science and social science methods across large volumes of social media data to examine various social problems. For this initiative, she has provided oversight of the two awards (NSF #2031246 and #2318438) while also leading the development of the user guides for the COPE-ID's database and data visualization tool and associated methods, such as the topic modeling user guides. She is also working toward broadening research participation in social media research by sharing presentations with potential users and then evaluating the effectiveness of the COPE-ID data visualization tool. Sujan Anreddy, Ph.D.
Co-PI
Dr. Sujan Anreddy joined SSRC in January 2018 as a computer specialist, and after completing his PhD, he was named an assistant research professor. He currently works on the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded project, “Child Health and Development Project” where he is designing and managing an integrated database that links educational records from MS Department of Education (MDE) with health records from the Division of Medicaid and the Mississippi State Department of Health. As part of managing this integrated database, he deals with technical issues related to system maintenance and data quality, such as integration, consistency and integrity and provides support to data analysts. Additionally, given his expertise in data visualization, he provides the SSRC with the capacity to develop data dashboards and interactive visualizations. He holds a doctorate in Computer Science from Mississippi State University, specializing in data visualization. His expertise and research interests include applying and evaluating machine learning algorithms and building visual patterns using interactive visualization techniques to help analysts explore, identify, and comprehend big data features at multiple levels. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3362-1332
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3362-1332Contribution to Project: Co-PI Dr. Anreddy (Visual Analytics Computer Scientist) has years of experience developing visual analytical products for public health and safety needs. His expertise in visual analytics and prior experience mentoring computer science graduate and undergraduate students working with social media data is informative for the objectives outlined in this infrastructure project.
Terri Hernandez, Ph.D.
Co-PI
Dr. Terri N. Hernandez is an Associate Professor of Public Relations in the Department of Communication at Mississippi State University, where she also serves as the Public Relations Concentration Coordinator. Her research explores the intersections of social and digital media, inter/intragroup relations, and consumer behavior, focusing on organization–public relationships, branding, and strategic communication. She has years of experience working with social media datasets, applying quantitative and qualitative methodologies to explore the data. Further, her scholarship spans both theoretical and applied domains, integrating insights from social science with professional practice, such as user experience design in websites and other digital applications. Her collaborative work with the NSF and MSU’s SSRC has expanded her expertise into large-scale data analytics, machine learning, and interdisciplinary research infrastructure. In particular, her recent NSF-funded projects involve building data repositories and developing methods to analyze social media data, addressing challenges like restricted access to platforms like X (Twitter). By creating accessible research tools, she aims to support scholars in examining critical social phenomena, including misinformation spread and public sentiment during crises. Dr. Hernandez’s work has appeared in leading journals such as the Journal of Consumer Marketing, Social Media and Society, and Computers & Human Behavior. She has co-authored multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and her creative scholarship has earned more than 30 professional awards from PR associations, including SPRF and PRAM. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1939-7266Contribution to Project: Co-PI Dr. Terri Hernandez’s (Communication & UX Design Social Scientist) expertise also aligns with conducting user experience research where she will lead the user experience studies from the beginning stages of the design to the evaluation phase of the project. Hernandez also has experience developing websites (having also developed the current COPE-ID and DS3 websites referenced earlier).
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1939-7266Contribution to Project: Co-PI Dr. Terri Hernandez’s (Communication & UX Design Social Scientist) expertise also aligns with conducting user experience research where she will lead the user experience studies from the beginning stages of the design to the evaluation phase of the project. Hernandez also has experience developing websites (having also developed the current COPE-ID and DS3 websites referenced earlier). Research Team
Chris Lightsey
Senior Personnel
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Josh Dowdy, M.S.
Consultant
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Lauren Etheredge
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Jacob Adams
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Madeline Burdine, M.S., M.A.
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Cloie Corley
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Chris Lightsey
Senior Personnel
Chris Lightsey is a Research Engineer at the High-Performance Computing Collaboratory (HPCC), where he works with large social media datasets for proprietary projects. Chris has been involved in projects focusing on data visualization, machine learning, supercomputing, natural language processing, open-source intelligence, and computer security. He is currently working on machine learning applications to analyze publicly available data with a focus on social media and news analytics. He has worked on projects funded by the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center. Chris Lightsey joined CCI in 2016 as a Research Engineer. He holds a B.S. degree in computer science from Mississippi State University. Contribution to Project: His expertise in working with large volumes of social media data and data science applications will also greatly aid us in developing COPE-ID VAT.
Josh Dowdy, M.S.
Consultant
Josh Dowdy obtained his master's in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Mississippi State University in 2018. Throughout his master’s degree, he focused on machine learning, pattern recognition, and computational intelligence methodologies and algorithms related to image and signal processing. Josh was a member of the Research and Development team at Babel Street from January 2018 to December 2024 and has worked on various projects related to publicly available information processing. During his employment at Babel Street, he gained significant experience and domain knowledge in extracting valuable and relevant information from text using state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques. Throughout his employment at Babel Street, Josh has been part of projects involving document clustering, anomaly detection, and topic modeling and has led the creation of a geoinferencing system. He was also extensively involved in research utilizing large language models (LLMs) for risk/event detection. He is currently awaiting a decision on his application to the Ph.D. program of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Mississippi State University. As of January 2025, Josh has started working at Camgian as a Senior Data Scientist. Contribution to Project: Josh has years of experience analyzing and extracting relevant information from large volumes of textual data composed of a variety of sources and languages. He has created, curated, and maintained pivotal databases and procedures to meet the requirements of a variety of tasks including topic modeling, document clustering, and anomaly detection. His expertise gained from working in an industry where customers rely on the results of an advertised product will be very useful as this project aims to provide knowledge and understanding of the COPE-ID dataset with hopes of being extended to support any dataset of its nature in the future. Josh has created all backend functionality and integrated Elasticsearch which allows a user of the platform to search for a variety of terms, topics, and sources across millions of documents within milliseconds. He has also worked closely with Chris and Jacob to establish a normalized data structure for the documents to ensure quality and accuracy.
Lauren Etheredge
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Lauren Etheredge is a Research Associate at Mississippi State University’s Social Science Research Center (SSRC), a graduate student in MSU’s Sociology department, and a member of the Data Science for Social Sciences (DS3) Laboratory. She holds a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in Sociology, and she is currently pursuing her master's degree in Sociology. Her primary research interests center on disparities in physical and mental health outcomes, LGBTQ+ health, ADHD and Autism, social and emotional learning (SEL), and impacts of AI and social media use. Her undergraduate honors thesis examined barriers to mental healthcare among college students using an intersectional approach. https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0161-3639Contribution to Project: Lauren has been working in the artificial intelligence and computer science space for the past year and a half. On this project,
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0161-3639Contribution to Project: Lauren has been working in the artificial intelligence and computer science space for the past year and a half. On this project, Jacob Adams
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Jacob Adams is a graduate student at Mississippi State University, pursuing a master’s in computer science. He completed his bachelor’s degree in computer science in just three years and immediately began his master’s program, where he also took on the role of Graduate Teaching Assistant for Data Structures and Analysis of Algorithms. Throughout his academic journey, Adams has developed an unwavering passion for academia, higher education, research and programming. Under the mentorship of Dr. Adams Jones, he works in the High-Fidelity Virtual Environments (Hi5) lab, where he is currently focusing on his master’s thesis related to audio perception in virtual environments. His primary research area of interest is utilizing artificial intelligence to assist students with disabilities. In addition to his research, Adams is a part of the DS3 lab and contributes to the NSF-funded DataViz project in front-end and full-stack development. His experiences as a Teaching and Research Assistant have deeply influenced his aspiration to become a professor. His ultimate goal is to create impactful, student-centered curricula and to lead research that integrates AI and user-friendly interfaces to enhance the academic experience for all students.
Madeline Burdine, M.S., M.A.
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Madeline Burdine joined the SSRC in January 2024 as a Research Associate. Burdine received her bachelor’s degree in communication from Mississippi State University. She later earned a master’s degree in integrated marketing communication (2022) and a master’s degree in sociology (2024) from the University of Mississippi. As a graduate student at the University of Mississippi, Burdine put her passion for the social sciences to work in a number of ways. She served for one year as a graduate assistant for the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies before being selected to serve as a graduate research assistant on a research project funded by NSF. Over the course of the project, Burdine was part of interviewing over 100 White southerners to explore how they feel about their place within the racial hierarchy today. Burdine’s thesis explored how heterosexuals who are considered supportive of the LGBTQ+ community navigate and maintain relationships with their LGBTQ+ friends and family within the conservative state of Mississippi. Burdine has also conducted interviews for the Queer Mississippi Oral History Project. As a research associate at the SSRC, Burdine has worked on projects within the following labs: Mississippi Tobacco Data, the Community Impacts Lab, the Evaluation and Research Group, and the Data Science for Social Sciences (DS3) Laboratory. Her diverse skillset allows her work to range from data collection to web and graphic design expertise in the formulation of reports and communication. Burdine is currently completing coursework toward a Ph.D. in Sociology from Mississippi State University. https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0829-6336Contribution to Project: As an undergraduate student in communication, Madeline Burdine assisted Dr. Terri Hernandez in the initial development of the DS3 website. After completing graduate degrees at another institution, Burdine returned to Mississippi State University to begin her research career and had a full-circle moment to once again join forces with Dr. Hernandez in the expansion of DS3’s website.
https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0829-6336Contribution to Project: As an undergraduate student in communication, Madeline Burdine assisted Dr. Terri Hernandez in the initial development of the DS3 website. After completing graduate degrees at another institution, Burdine returned to Mississippi State University to begin her research career and had a full-circle moment to once again join forces with Dr. Hernandez in the expansion of DS3’s website. Cloie Corley
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Cloie Corley is an SSRC Undergraduate Research Assistant pursuing a bachelor’s in data science at MSU. Within the DS3 lab, she is often called the “data wizard” for her experience managing large datasets and producing interesting visualizations communicating the data’s story. She accesses and analyzes data from the Human Sensor Project, the COPE-ID project, and other criminological data using various methods. Additionally, she assists a team of scientists in developing a data visualization tool that bridges social science and data science theories and techniques for conducting social media research. https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6919-4230Contribution to Project: TBD
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6919-4230Contribution to Project: TBD