Assistant Professor Shaun Wallace has been selected as a 2026 Public Policy Fellow through URI’s Social Science Institute for Research, Education, and Policy (SSIREP).

Wallace’s fellowship project, “Exploring Cyber Dating Aggression in Real-Time Among Young Adults,” will prototype a web-based user-first privacy-preserving extraction pipeline for identifying cyber dating aggression (CDA) from their naturally occurring digital communications in real-time. This will enable preliminary explorations to study CDA experiences and mental health fluctuations in young adults.

As PI, Wallace will collaborate with other URI Faculty (Dr. Hans Saint-Eloi Cadely, Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science, and Dr. Jillian Scheer, Assistant Professor of Psychology), external community partners within Rhode Island, and mentor URI undergraduate student fellows during the summer of 2026. Student fellows gain hands-on research experience in applied policy research, a core component of URI’s Social Science Institute for Research, Education, and Policy (SSIREP), broader educational mission.

The work is part of SSIREP’s Public Policy Lab mission to to foster programs in scholarly research, teaching and learning, and outreach to students, faculty, business, government, and community.