Michael Hoefer

Welcome

My name is Michael, I study computer science and cognitive science at CU Boulder, and work in the TMI lab advised by Professor Stephen Voida. I have a broad interest in complex systems, and in particular, social systems. I’m currently exploring personal informatics as a leverage point for supporting organic change in social systems, focusing on individual personal development at scale through new patterns of directing attention. My work is motivated by the environmental and mental health crises, which may actually have similar underlying causes.

I’m exploring this space broadly, with projects on dreaming, mental health, sustainable consumption corridors, and spirituality. Methodologically, I draw on the fields of human-computer interaction, data science, network science, psychology, and applied machine learning.

News

2023

July

June

May

  • Proposed my dissertation work about Personal Informatics for Personal Development.

April

January

  • Teaching CSCI 1300 again this spring.

2022

August

  • Excited to teach CSCI 1300 again this fall, this time with 360 students!

July

May

2021

2020

2019

  • 8/26 - I began a PhD program at The University of Colorado Boulder

Research Interests

  • Problem solving and measurement in social systems
  • Systematic assessment of human need and satisfaction
  • Personal, interpersonal, and community informatics
  • Technologies for supporting serious mental illness, especially bipolar disorder and PTSD
  • Dream science and technology for supporting dream engagement
  • Meta-science and the quantification of scientific contribution
  • Emotional technologies and processes for emotional education
  • Organizational culture and intra-organizational mobility

As evidenced by the diversity of research interests above, I’m currently exploring a variety of approaches to problem solving in social systems. I’m most inspired by the ongoing work of Jack Harich at thwink.org as well as that of Joe Edelman at Human Systems.

Methodological Interests

  • Natural Language Processing
  • Human Centered Computering / Human Computer Interaction
  • Network Science
  • System Dynamics Modeling
  • Data Science and Computational Social Science