Talk Title: Who Do You Trust? Expertise, AI, and the People Who Have to Figure It Out

Speaker: Celia Chen, IC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, College of Information, University of Maryland College Park

Location: HBK 2105 and Zoom

Abstract: As AI systems become fluent producers of expert-sounding content, the signals we use to evaluate information authority are under pressure. This talk traces a research program examining how expertise gets communicated, evaluated, and sometimes weaponized across digital environments. Drawing on qualitative, computational, and content-analytic methods, this work asks: when expertise meets AI, who adapts, and how? The talk closes with an overview of ongoing postdoctoral research conducted under ODNI direction through an IC ORISE fellowship examining how cybersecurity professionals maintain and develop domain expertise as AI-assisted tools become embedded in their operational workflows.

Bio:  Celia Chen is an IC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the College of Information at UMD, working with Dr. Jennifer Golbeck. Their research examines how expertise is communicated and evaluated in digital environments, with a focus on how AI is reshaping those dynamics across both everyday and high-stakes contexts.