
Andrea Hoplight Tapia
About Me
Professional
Summary
I am internationally known as a scholar of Crisis Informatics (the study of information use and sharing in disaster or crisis settings). I am currently a Professor of Information Sciences and Technology and head of the Social and Organizational Informatics Faculty at the Pennsylvania State University.
I study the ways that information technology impacts and is impacted by social, cultural, political, economic, and organizational structures. The goal of my research is to help communities make use of large amounts of data already produced by community-members that potentially improves the speed, quality, and efficiency of governmental and organizational response.
The results of my work have contributed directly to the policy-making bodies of the United Nations, the Obama Administration and several emergency management and international relief organizations, such as NetHope, the Red Cross and Mission Critical Partners.

ACHIEVEMENTS
Fulbright Scholar
13 grants worth $4.2m+
51 journal articles
73 peer-reviewed conference proceedings
Influenced best practices for 300+ humanitarian information managers worldwide
Created Aurorasaurus citizen science project in partnership with Los Alamos National Labs & NASA
Partnerships
















Selected Press Coverage
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NPR Interview: As 2020 Begins, We Commemorate The 20th Anniversary Of Y2K, January 2020
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Penn State News: Tapia to deliver keynote speech at iSchool Inclusion Institute, June 2018
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Penn State News: IST researchers incorporate social media into emergency response, June 2018
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Penn State News: Can Twitter aid disaster response? New IST research examines how
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Science News: Spot the northern lights with Aurorasaurus, April 2015