BRIC builds the technology foundation for innovative social and behavioral research.
Our open source technologies are used by researchers across the social sciences and around the world to collect robust and novel forms of data.
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BRIC technology powers research projects at:
Projects
LifeSense
LifeSense was a mobile application that combined passive sensing and dynamic surveys to identify contextual clues in participants' lives related to depression and anxiety.
Search Historian
The Search Historian web extension combined elements of the Web Historian extension with the Webmunk framework to create an experimental platform for measuring how search result placement affected user behavior.
Small Steps
Small Steps is an SMS-based mental health intervention to assist people with anxiety and depression. It uses educational modules, guided exercises, and cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs) which are customized for each participant using reinforcement learners.
Youth Mental Health Study
The Youth Mental Health Study at developed specialized tools to analyze donated social media data to observe changes in online footprints before and after a visit to a campus mental health clinic.
Our Mission
advancing research and enabling innovation.
To advance research and enable innovation by creating, promoting, and supporting responsible computational practices and infrastructure for studying human behavior and society.
Our Vision
A world where people can easily discover, access, and powerfully apply computational social science tools to promote human flourishing around the globe.
Our Team
Christopher J. Karr
Technology Director
Prior to BRIC, Chris founded a successful research software consultancy (Audacious Software), where he served research clients for over fifteen years creating open-source platforms, frameworks, and methodologies to tackle research challenges in psychology, political science, economics, and health care. He earned his master's degree from Northwestern University's Media, Technology & Society program, where his work focused on context-aware computing powered by passive sensing and machine learning. In addition to his research work, he has also served as the CTO for two technology startups.
Ericka Menchen-Trevino, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Before co-founding BRIC, Ericka was an Assistant Professor at American University in Washington, D.C. (2015-2023), and Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands (2012-2015). She is also a lecturer in the communication department at the University of Illinois at Chicago (2025-Present). She earned her Ph.D. from the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Dr. Menchen-Trevino has published academic articles on political communication and computational methods. She also developed software for collecting digital behavioral data with interactive visualizations.
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