Congratulations to Dr. Raiyan Abdul Baten for winning the Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award.

For his thesis on “Understanding, Modeling & Elevating Creative Performances in Self-organizing Networks”, Dr. Raiyan Abdul Baten wins the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC) Outstanding Ph.D. dissertation award. This was announced at the Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII) conference at MIT.

In the future, creativity will be the most important skill to possess. Although there has been a significant amount of research on creativity, the development of effective interventions to enhance creative outcomes and the exploration of gender, race, and popularity’s role in the creative process has not been attempted until Raiyan Abdul Baten’s Ph.D. thesis. This PhD disseration breaks new ground in understanding people’s online interactions (especially in the post-COVID era).

The thesis makes a significant contribution to a multidisciplinary research area that encompasses computer science, group dynamics, social psychology, and cognitive science, all tied together by affective computing. This thesis is a seminal work that unlocks the potential of human creativity, providing valuable insights for tackling the challenges of the future of work.

The thesis committee included Ehsan Hoque (CS), Gourab Ghoshal (Physics), Gonzalo Mateo (ECE) and Marvin Doyle (ECE).