In early January 2025, Dr. Derrick L. Cogburn, Co-Director of the American University Internet Governance Lab (IGL) and Executive Director of the Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP), led a team of researchers at the 58th annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). The group showcased innovative approaches to disability inclusion through generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and text analytics.
Dr. Derrick Cogburn, along with research associates and assistants from IGL and IDPP, facilitated a tutorial titled “Advanced Text Analytics with NLP and Generative AI.” During this session, Dr. Derrick Cogburn, Haiman Wong, Theodore Ochieng, Mina Aydin, and Juliana Woods provided a comprehensive walkthrough on applying tools such as NLP, generative AI, and predictive modeling to datasets like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. This hands-on tutorial demonstrated the transformative potential of AI technologies in policy analysis.
In addition, the team presented the paper “Understanding National, Regional, and Global Priorities for the Social Justice and Economic Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities: Analyzing CRPD State Reports Using Text Mining, NLP, and LLMs.” This research paper analyzed 170 State Reports from the UN CRPD, illustrating global progress in disability policy implementation and showcasing the scalability of text mining and NLP methodologies for monitoring international treaties.
The conference also featured sessions from two HICSS research paper minitracks: “Culture, Identity, and Inclusion” and “AI Safety, Cybersecurity, and Inclusion through Advanced Text Analytics.” Both minitrack sessions highlighted Best Paper Award nominees and discussed future research goals.
The “Culture, Identity, and Inclusion” minitrack is co-chaired by Dr. Derrick Cogburn, IGL Co-Director Dr. Nanette Levinson, and IDPP Deputy Director Dr. Filippo Trevisan. Its Best Paper Award nominee, “Towards Inclusive Digital Transactions: Disability and The Case of Singapore’s Singpass App,” was authored by Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Bella Choo, Gerard Goggin, Chei Sian Lee, Felix Tan, and Roxanne Llamzon.
Meanwhile, the “AI Safety, Cybersecurity, and Inclusion through Advanced Text Analytics” minitrack is co-chaired by Dr. Derrick Cogburn, Haiman Wong, and Theodore Ochieng. The nominated paper, “Adversarial Natural Language Processing: Overview, Challenges, and Future Directions,” was written by Laxmi Shaw, Mohammed Wasim Ansari, and Tahir Ekin.
Check out the pictures below to see the team in action at this prestigious conference.
