Dr. Starbird examines online interaction and collaboration in the context of crisis events, specifically looking at how people appropriate social media to help inform others and coordinate response efforts during natural disasters and other large-scale crises. One focal area of her research is digital volunteerism, where remote individuals attempt to provide assistance to those affected. In a related project, she is investigating the flow of misinformation with particular focus on the "work" of the crowd to challenge and correct false rumors. Dr. Starbird's research, which incorporates theory and methods from social science and computer science, is situated within the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) and computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) as well as the emerging research areas of crowdsourcing and crisis informatics.