NSF Awards Five $5 Million Grant to Help Older Adults Spot Online Scams, Disinformation

From the University of Buffalo & University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information:

Last year, more than 92,000 U.S. adults aged 60 and over reported being victims of online scams, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Their losses? Roughly $1.7 billion.

To fight this problem, a University at Buffalo-led research team was awarded a two-year, $5 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator phase 2 cooperative agreement to create digital tools that help older adults better recognize and protect themselves from online deceptions and other forms of disinformation.

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Co-principal investigators include Natalie Bazarova, PhD, professor in the Department of Communications at Cornell University, Dominic DiFranzo, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Lehigh University, Darren Linvill, PhD, associate professor in the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences at Clemson University; and Anita Nikolich, director of research and technology innovation and research scientist in the School of Information Sciences at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

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The project, Deception Awareness and Resilience Training (DART), is led by the UB Center for Information Integrity (CII), which was launched in late 2021 with internal funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at UB. Lyu and Castillo serve as co-directors of CII.

DART builds upon a $750,000 National Science Foundation phase 1 grant the team received last year, when it began meeting with older adults in Western New York and South Carolina to better understand how they fall victim to online deceptions.

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NSF selected the DART team for the second phase of the accelerator’s 2021 cohort. It is one of six teams funded under the accelerator’s Track F: Trust and Authenticity in Communication Systems.

Additional DART investigators are affiliated with Cornell University, Lehigh University, and Northeastern University. The team also includes representatives from the Education Collaborative of Western New York.

Additional partner organizations include the Amherst Center for Senior Services in Amherst, New York; Clemson Downs, a retirement community in Clemson, South Carolina, and the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library system.

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