# Jen Golbeck

Jennifer Golbeck is an American computer scientist. She currently is a professor at the College of Information, an affiliate professor in the Computer Science Department, and an affiliate professor in the Journalism Department, all at the University of Maryland, College Park. Golbeck was director of the University of Maryland Human–Computer Interaction Lab from 2011 to 2014.

## Education

Jennifer Golbeck completed her Doctor of Philosophy in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park. She also earned an SM and SB in Computer Science and an AB in Economics from the University of Chicago, and an MLA in Psychology from Harvard University.

## Research

Jennifer Golbeck is known for her work on computational social network analysis. She developed methods for inferring information about relationships and people in social networks. Her models for computing trust between people in social networks are among the first in the field. Social trust was for used in early research on trust-based recommender systems. She was a program co-chair of ACM RecSys 2015. and General Chair in 2022
Golbeck has received attention for her work on computing personality traits and political preferences of individuals based on their social network profiles. Her presentation at TEDxMidatlantic, discussing the need for new methods of educating users about how to protect their personal data, was selected as one of TED's 2014 Year in Ideas talks. She presented at TEDxGeorgetown, about pets on the internet.

## Media and publications

Golbeck has written for Slate, The Atlantic, the LA Times, Wired, HuffPost, and served as a guest host on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, a talk show on Washington, DC's NPR affiliate, WAMU.
She also works as a photojournalist, focused on news, political events, and demonstrations.
Golbeck co-authored The Purest Bond: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection with Stacey Colino. The book examines the psychology and science of people's connections with their dogs and debuted at #26 on the USA Today Bestseller List.

### Books

* The Purest Bond with Stacey Colino Simon & Schuster 2023 ISBN 9781668007846
* Online Harassment (ed.) Springer (2018) ISBN 9783319785837
* Social Media Investigation Singress (2015) ISBN 0-12-801656-6
* Analyzing the Social Web Morgan Kaufmann (2013) ISBN 0-12-405531-1
* Computing with Social Trust (ed.) Springer (2008) ISBN 1-848-00355-2
* Trust on the World Wide Web: A Survey Now Publishers (2008) ISBN 1-601-98116-3
* Art Theory for Web Design Addison-Wesley (2005) ISBN 1-57-676142-8

## Personal life

Golbeck splits her time between Silver Spring, Maryland and the Florida Keys.

### Social media

Golbeck is also a prominent social media figure. Her TikTok account about her research has over 200,000 followers and her Twitter account has 40,000 followers.
She and her husband rescue special needs golden retrievers and maintain popular social media accounts for them called The Golden Ratio, which features images and videos of their dogs. They have more than 600,000 followers on Snapchat and 170,000 on Twitter. One of their special-needs foster dogs, Cheddar, was adopted by noted photojournalist Alex Brandon and his wife.
Golbeck also manages various other social media accounts, such as jen runs with dogs, which highlights her experiences as an ultramarathon runner. Podcasts produced by Golbeck include The Golden Ratio Podcast, Murders in Paradise, and Runs With Dogs.