User:Benjamin Mako Hill/Prospective graduate students

My "lab" is called the Community Data Science Collective and it's a research group that is split between the University of Washington Department of Communication a number of other academic institutions. We have a couple dozen faculty, post-doc, and graduate student members and we're always looking to add more. You should consider joining us!

I have advised or co-advised students in the University of Washington's Department of Communication, Department of Human-Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE), and in the Information School (iSchool).

PhD programs I am involved with at UW

My primary appointment is in the University of Washington Department of Communication and most of my PhD students have been based in this department. The department has an absolutely wonderful PhD program. When I was considering graduate school, I very nearly went here myself! The good news for me is that (because there is an unwritten rule that universities should not hire their own students) I now get to teach here!

I also advise students in several other departments at UW. I am involved in the admissions process in HCDE and CSE most years and have reviewed applicants and interview students in both departments. That said, because I am adjunct faculty in both department and I believe it is important that every student have active mentorship from faculty fully engaged with a department, I will typically only advocate for admission of a student in HCDE or CSE if there is at least one another faculty member in these departments who is interested in coadviseing the student in question.

What I'm looking for in students

The most important thing I'm looking for in students is a deep interest in online communities involved in building public information goods. In the past, that has typically involved sites like Wikipedia, Fandom/Wikia, free/open source software, free culture, OpenStreetMap, Reddit, Q&A sites, or a wide range of other peer production communities. I'm typically less interested in pure social media communities that are "just" about talking and chatting—although I've got room in my heart for them and have done research projects related to them from time-to-time. I am also looking for students with a technical background (e.g., at least a little experience with programming, statistics, and/or mathematics).

I'm particularly interested in students interested in studying peer production communities to understand how and why they work. If you contribute to a wiki, a remixing community, or a free software project, if you use GNU/Linux, if you enjoy programming (even if it's only ever used a means to solving problems you do care about), and if you want to become a social scientist, please consider applying to our department and let me know you've applied.

It's OK if you're not an expert in all this stuff yet or if you don't know a lot of statistics. After all, grad school is school and learning new tools and approaches is hopefully a big part of why you're applying to graduate school in the first place. I had not taken a math class since high school when I started in graduate school. I learned a lot while I was there and I'm still working on it. What's important is that you show me (and the admissions committee) that you're interested and able to learn.

Personally, I'm much less concerned with things like grades and test scores than I am with a proven ability to build things, to ask interesting questions, to write working code, to craft solid prose, and to make the world a better place. Of course, admission is never entirely up to me and things like grades and test scores certainly help your case.

Applying to UW

First of all, you need decide which program(s) at UW you wan to apply to. Each year, I am most involved in—and have most influence in—decisions within the Department of Communication. If you hope to work with me but are applying in another department, you should identify at least one other potential coadvisor in that other department.

Once you've done that, you should check out the following information about applying to the programs at UW:

• UW Department of Communication MA/PhD Admissions Homepage
• UW Human-Centered Design and Engineering PhD Admissions Homepage
• UW Department of Computer Science & Engineering PhD Admissions Homepage
• UW iSchool PhD Admissions Homepage

Things you should know about my role in the PhD admissions process

Most of my advisees are PhD students in the Department of Communication. The Department of Communication is wide and interdisciplinary and accepts a wide variety of students with interests in doing work that spans the humanities and social sciences.

Please keep in mind that I do not serve on the graduate admissions committee in any of these departments. This means that I will not be reading applications from the general pool or be making the first cut through applicants.

As part of the admissions process, I always give feedback on applicants to the admissions committee. I also typically have grant funding to fund RAs. So although I don't ever make admissions decisions on my own, my opinion matters and I can influence the process in some important ways.

The admission committee always asks me two questions:

1. What I do think about the student relative to other applicants?
2. Am I a likely (a) advisor/chair or (b) committee member?

The key thing for students to realize when reaching out to potential faculty like me is that my opinion in terms of the first question only matters if the the answer to questions 2(a), and to a lesser extent, 2(b) is affirmative.

Typically, I am only asked to weigh in on students who the admissions committee has decided are likely to work with me. This means my opinion is only valued strongly if the applicants proposed research agenda involves studies of social media and/or online communities or who's methodological toolbox includes quantitative data science or programming.

As I mentioned, some of my influence at the admissions stage stems from my ability to fund RAs. Being able to work as an RA for one of my funded projects helps your chances of being admitted to our program enormously. But again, you will only be at an advantage if you can convince the committee (and me!) that you would be interested and able to do the kinds of work that are described in the grants my lab has received or will apply for in the future.

The specific structure of the admissions process and committees varies in the other departments but my involvement is similar, although even more arms-length. I have never done a "first pass" in any department other than Communication and can guarantee that I will not be involved in the admissions process for students that I am not a likely committee member for.

Asking questions

If you have questions about the departments or the admissions processes, you should check the material on the admissions websites and FAQs and/or contact the admissions staff who will be more helpful and more responsive than I am.

If you have questions about my research or about working with me, you can email me directly at makohill@uw.edu. If I don't know you, you should introduce yourself by describing your interests, qualifications and the reason you think these are a match for my research interests and methodologies. If you don't know my research interests and methods, you should look through my academic page—maybe even read a couple papers—and try to make sure it really is a good match.

Please keep in mind that I am often busy and not always awesome at email. As a result, it might take me some time to respond to prospective students. If it's been more than a week or two, feel free to ping me again.

Meetings (prospective UW graduate students)

Unfortunately, my fall quarter 2024 is completely booked with teaching and service responsibilities and I simply do not have the bandwidth to meet with prospective students 1-on-1 while the quarter is in session. Feel free to ask me questions by email and we can take things from there. I'd also be happy to talk in the new year if it's still useful.

Both the UW Department of Communication and the Community Data Science Collective will have open PhD recruiting events that will provide an opportunity to meet folks. UW Communication has an event on a recruiting event on November 6 (which I sadly will not be able to attend) and the CDSC is running a Q&A session on October 18 that I plan to be at. Either will be good a place to get your questions answered. The CDSC event is probably your best opportunity to talk with me in person.

Meetings (admitted UW graduate students)

If you have been admitted to UW in Communication, Human-Centered Design & Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering, the Information School, or any other department really, I'd love to talk with you!

If you don't fulfill the criteria I listed above, that means I very likely did not participate in the review of your application. However, it does not mean I will not work with you at some point in the future, teach classes that you might take, or help you try to develop and frame your research as a graduate student at UW.

And of course, If you've been admitted to other good programs, I would also love to try to convince you to come to UW. I love UW and I love Seattle and I would love to tell you why.