Hi 👋🏼 My name is Shiza!

I am a research scientist at The Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS). My work focuses on how people understand and interact with AI systems, especially around trust, safety, and online harms.

 

I combine human factors, security, and privacy, and human-centered AI methods to study how people interpret AI-generated content and authenticity signals. I use user studies, interviews, and behavioral experiments to examine how design choices shape user understanding and decision making.
Previously, I worked within the (RAISE Lab) to develop investigated biases in AI-generated co-authorship networks. I earned my PhD from Boston University, where I was part of the Security Lab (SeclaBU) and collaborated with iDrama Lab and STIR Lab on detecting youth exploitation, disinformation, and coordinated abuse across social media platforms. Read more about my research here.

My work has been published in top-tier venues including ACM CHI, CSCW, and IEEE S&P and has been reported by WIRED. My research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) .

News

2025  July Started Research Scientist position at The Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS).
2024  August Started postdoc at the University of Washington.
2024  May Defended my PhD. Thesis. You can call me a doc. now!!
2023  December Gave a talk on "Tackling Malicious Activity Online" at the University of Iowa
2023  November I was awarded "Rising Star in Social Computing and Tech Policy" by University of Iowa
2023  October Our paper "Sliding into My DMs" received the Impact Recognition award!
2023  August I got selected for the SIGCHI Gary Marsden Travel Award.
2023  May I received Research PhD. Fellowship Finalist Award at Meta.
2023  April Our papers titled "Getting Meta" and "Sliding into My DMs" got accepted at CSCW'23. Two papers yaayy!!
2022  August My Paper "Understanding the Digital Lives of Youth" got the Honorable Mention Award at CHI'22'!!
2022  April Our paper titled "Understanding the Digital Lives of Youth" got accepted at CHI'22!

My Blog