Claudia López Moncada

Research

My work is mostly focused on human-centered AI now. I also do research focused on the intersection of gender, inequalities, and computing. Before, I have worked on social computing and software architecture documentation.

Human-centered artificial intelligence

I have several strands of research within this line of work.

I have a research agenda on algorithmic transparency in institutional settings that began in the Millennium Nucleus FAIR (2022-2025) and is now funded by the ANID Fondecyt Regular grant that I lead with Dr. Teresa Correa. In FAIR, we also articulated this line of work with our colleague Dr. Mónica Humeres and her own Fondecyt. Together, we have published a few papers on that (IJHCS’26, IJHCI’25, P&I’26) and more are coming! This work will be expanded to study authority and social regulation in the Millennium Institute ASOR.

Along with Teresa, Mónica, and others, we also explored the narratives and socio-technical imaginaries of AI in Chile, across several contexts such as projects funded by the state, legislative discussions, and media (see SSCR’26. CC’25, DJ’25, BD&S’25).

As a principal researcher in CENIA, I co-lead, along with Dr. Marcelo Mendoza, the research line on human-centered AI. There, we use a socio-technical perspective to study and build AI systems. That work led us to co-author a book on Ethics in AI and IT with Dr. Gabriela Arriagada (CRC’25). We have made other contributions on ethics (S&EE’25) and LLM audits (arxiv’26). This last thread of work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Andrés Abeliuk and postdoc Cinthia Sanchez.

Within CENIA, I have also worked for years with Dr. Felipe Bravo on dashAI, a no-code, open-source platform for training predictive machine learning models and using LLMs locally, without programming and without sending data to the cloud.

Before, I used NLP (natural language processing) to investigate regional differences in the dynamics of use and content production in social technologies, such as Wikipedia (IwC’22) and Twitter (JCSCW’22, CSCWComp’21, LAWeb’20).

This work has been funded by the following projects:

  • Centro Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial (CENIA), Basal, ANID. Director: Alvaro Soto (2021-2026, extension until 2031is under evaluation). My role: principal investigator.
  • Fondecyt Regular, ANID. Empowering People in the Context of AI Systems: Enabling Algorithmic Literacy through Informational, Relational, and Systemic Transparency (2026-2030). My role: responsible investigator.
  • Fondecyt Regular, ANID. Adolescent Cognition in the Era of Generative AI: Unveiling the Cognitive Consequences of Human–LLM Interaction in High-School Students (2026-2030). Responsible: Ernesto Guerra. My role: co-investigator.
  • Millennium Institute on Authority and Social Regulation (ASOR), ANID, Director: Dr. Kathya Araujo. (2026-2036). My role: associate investigator.
  • ANID IDeA I+D, ANID. DashAI: plataforma no-code de aprendizaje automático (2025-2027). Director: Felipe Bravo. My role: deputy director.
  • Millennium Nucleus Futures of Artificial Intelligence and its socio-cultural implications in Chile and Latin America (FAIR), ANID. Director: Tironi, M. (2022-2025). My role: principal investigator.

Social technologies, civic participation, and democracy

As social media becomes increasingly pervasive, civil society has adopted various social technologies as communication media, in which citizens are both content producers and consumers. We have studied how Chilean nonprofits use social media to achieve their strategic goals (SocInfo’18, SCCC’16) and how people frame their concerns about data privacy on Twitter (CSCWComp’19, LAWeb’19). Several papers on these lines are currently under review or in progress. This work has been funded by the following projects.

  • “Developing a research and teaching agenda about social computing”, MEC 2019-20, Conicyt. US$25,000 (2 years). PI: López, C. Co-PI: Farzan, R.
  • “Twitter and presidential leadership” UTFSM Internal research project 2018-19, 11161026. US$20,000 (1.5 years). PI: López, C., Co-PI: Zuchel, L., Oyanedel, M., Tapia, C., Arana, I., Codocedo, V.
  • “Does social media attention matter? A longitudinal assessment of the impact of nonprofits’ social media strategies on citizen participation in urban areas” Fondecyt de Iniciación en Investigación 2016, 11161026. Conicyt. US$118,600 (3 years). PO: López, C.
  • “Towards a model of the impact of participatory information technologies on NGOs: An analysis of social capital networks” UTFSM Internal research project 2016, 116.24.3. US$8,800 (9 months). PI: López, C., Co-PI: Astudillo, H., Reyes, C., Hevia, L., Moreira, A. (more details about it in a note about it in Spanish)

Women, inequalities, and computing

I worry about inequalities, and I work to make computing a field that can help build a fair society. I led a project to create a platform that encourages equity and associativity among female entrepreneurs in Valparaíso. I conducted an assessment of the impact of design decisions on digital inclusion (SocInfo’17). I participate in projects and events related to the professional trajectories of female engineers (Observatorio, ChileWiC) to better understand the barriers that explain gender inequalities in this area. We have published a book chapter on diversity in engineering (news), the development of computation thinking among high school students (SCCC’18) and incoming STEM freshmen (ToED), and early work on registration attrition of women students in Informatics (SCCC’19). I also work to articulate the CSCW Latin American community and make it more impactful in the global research community (Interactions’19, CLIHC’19, catalystWorkshop’19, CSCWWorkshop’18). This work has been funded by the following projects.

  • “Acompañamiento de trayectorias educativas “más mujeres en ciencia” desde un enfoque de género.” UTFSM 2024 US$13,000 (18 meses). PI: Vasquez, A., Co-PI: López, C., Soto, P.
  • “Serendipity for equitable recommendations in digital markets: an application for associativity among female micro-entrepreneurs during a pandemic” ANID 2020. US$68,350 (12 months). PI: López, C. Co-PI: Santander, P., Codocedo, V.
  • “CSCW@LatAm research catalyst workshop,” ACM-SIGCHI Development Fund 2019. US$16,250. PI: López, C. Co-PI: de Souza, C., Gaytán, S., González, F., Valderrama, E.
  • “Analysis of gender gaps in engineering programs” UTFSM Internal research project US$14,600 (18 months). PI: Dombrovskaia, L., Co-PI: López, C., Reyes, C.
  • “Women in Engineering: A study of the professional trajectories of female engineers who graduated from UTFSM” UTFSM Internal Multidisciplinary Project 2016, 216.32.1. US$14,600 (9 months). PI: Zuchel, L., Co-PI: López, C., Reyes, C., Santander, P., Cea, J.

Sustainability and evidence-based design of hyper-local participatory technologies

In the face of the growing challenge of low civic participation, technology-based endeavors, such as hyper-local social media and open government initiatives, have emerged to facilitate citizens’ involvement with their local communities. However, evidence-based guidelines about how to start and maintain sustainable social information systems for urban communities are scarce and inconclusive. This research has conducted several observational and field studies to provide this kind of guidelines. We have studied Facebook groups (CSCW’13), paper-based bulletin boards (CHI’14), Yelp reviews (WebSciTrack’15, C&T’15), MeetUps (SocInfo’17) and E-Democracy.org discussion forums (CHI’15, HICSS’15, C&T’15, SocInfo’17, TOIT’17, doctoralDissertation).

Most of this work was done during my doctoral dissertation. By then, I undertook a mixed-methods investigation of e-democracy.org, one of the oldest, still-active web platforms that encourage and support citizen discussion of local politics in the USA. I conducted digital trace analysis, manual and automatic content classification, social network analysis, surveys, and interviews to assess the influence of online and offline factors on the sustainability of e-democracy online groups over time. 

In collaboration with Rosta Farzan (Pitt), Yu-Ru Lin (Pitt), Brian Butler (UMD)

Local information landscapes

Although there is a widespread impression that all information is online (and hence equally available everywhere), information studies are beginning to document how information can vary from place to place. How much information is available about a community, who generates it, where it is located, and how it is organized—these are all ways in which communities’ information landscapes can differ from one another. We have conducted a series of small-scale empirical studies of various aspects of the community information landscape, and the results suggest that these landscapes vary considerably from neighborhood to neighborhood (JUT’15, CHI’14). 

In collaboration with Brian Butler (UMD), Rosta Farzan (Pitt)

Participatory technologies for audience-bounded communities

Building online communities to support virtual interaction among members of already existing offline social structures can be challenging. Given their small potential audience, the volume of contributions will likely be insufficient to sustain community-driven systems. The perceived benefits of using the systems need to surpass not only the costs of participation, as in every online community, but also provide benefits that cannot be easily achieved through offline interactions. We have studied the adaptation of participatory technologies for academic conferences through field studies in Conference Navigator (see UMAP’12) according to users’ personality traits (CHI’13), offline user characteristics (iConference’13, UMAP’11), and online user activity (GROUP’12, CIC’16). 

In collaboration with Dr. Peter Brusilovsky (Pitt), Dr. Jung Sun Oh (Pitt), Dr. Rosta Farzan (Pitt), Dr. Oded Nov, Dr. Yu-Ru Lin (Pitt), Denis Parra (Pitt), Sherry Sahebi (Pitt), Xidao Wen (Pitt), Wei Jeng (Pitt).

Software engineering and software architecture

Before my Ph.D. program, I worked on several research projects to: enhance the non functional requirements knowledge reuse (SCP’12, JSS’09, IWSA’08, EWSA’06, QoSA’06, IWASE’06, Models05); automatically identify and mix learning objects for specialized domains (ContentCompass funded by FONDEF); build a semantic web platform for semantic integration and contextual management of distributed heterogeneous heritage archives (M&W’08, CONTEXTA funded by FONDEF); and develop a semantic web platform for software engineers that aims to support the Chilean software companies to achieve process quality certifications using a reference development process (EuroSPI’10, Tutelkan funded by CORFO). Lately, we have published a paper on improving user stories (CLEI’18).

In collaboration with: Dr. Hernán Astudillo (UTFSM), Dr. Luiz Marcio Cysneiros (York University), Dr. Javier Pereira (UDP), Victor Codocedo (UTFSM), Pablo Inostroza (UTFSM).