Featured

Reflections from the Human Computation Institute Team about the Citizen Science for Health 2025 Conference

Photo caption for featured image: The Human Computation Institute team in Stoos, Switzerland, before the conference — taking in mountain air and big ideas. From left: Ravish Dussaruth, Gretė Vaičaitytė, Caroline Nickerson, Maggie Lane, Luca Michelucci, Pietro Michelucci -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why we went to Zurich At the Human Computation Institute (HCI) [https:

Microsoft

Celebrating Microsoft Volunteers

As we wrap up 2025, we are reflecting with gratitude on an incredible Microsoft October Giving Campaign. Since 2022, every October, Microsoft employees have volunteered for the Human Computation Institute’s Stall Catchers [https://stallcatchers.com/virtualMicroscope] project, a gamified effort that results in real Alzheimer’s research. Microsoft volunteers

Girl Scouts

Girl Scouts Around the World Powered Alzheimer’s Research in the 4th Annual Catch-A-Thon

As the year comes to a close, we’re reflecting with gratitude on how Girl Scouts, families, and citizen scientists around the world came together to power Alzheimer’s research through Stall Catchers [https://stallcatchers.com/], a citizen science game developed by the Human Computation Institute (HCI). This blog post

Conferences

A case study in iterative development for crowdsourcing biomedical data analysis (Beta Catchers)

This blog post recaps one of Pietro Michelucci’s talks from the November Citizen Science for Health 2025 Conference [https://www.cs4health2025.uzh.ch/en.html] in Zurich, Switzerland. Pietro was the main presenter, but coauthors include Lisa Gusman, Laura Onac, Paz Santander, Margaret Lane, Ravish Dussaruth, Gretė Vaičaitytė, Jerry

Conferences

Integrating AI into citizen science for health: risks, rewards, and strategies

Featured image credit: Citizen Science for Health [https://www.cs4health2025.uzh.ch/en/conference_photo_gallery.html] This blog post recaps Pietro Michelucci’s keynote talk from the November Citizen Science for Health 2025 Conference [https://www.cs4health2025.uzh.ch/en.html] in Zurich, Switzerland. Ravish Dussaruth, Maggie Lane, Luca

Conferences Featured

Reflections from the Human Computation Institute Team about the Citizen Science for Health 2025 Conference

Photo caption for featured image: The Human Computation Institute team in Stoos, Switzerland, before the conference — taking in mountain air and big ideas. From left: Ravish Dussaruth, Gretė Vaičaitytė, Caroline Nickerson, Maggie Lane, Luca Michelucci, Pietro Michelucci -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why we went to Zurich At the Human Computation Institute (HCI) [https:

Stall Catchers

We're not done saying thanks for 2024 yet! Celebrating Microsoft volunteers

New year is right around the corner, but we cannot celebrate until we've dotted all i's and crossed all the t's on 2024! 😏 We'd like to give a much deserved shoutout to this year's Microsoft's October Giving Campaign,

Stall Catchers

Join us for a Stall Catchers webinar tomorrow!

Dear Catchers, please join us [https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrd-qtqT8rHd1B_F2oIdDhEkNyTMjk0h99] for a special webinar at 10 AM tomorrow, Saturday, 2nd November! Our team member, cultural anthropologist Libuše will present her new book, based on Stall Catchers [https://stallcatchers.com/] and similar projects. You'll be able

Stall Catchers

Libuše worked with us and then wrote about it in her new book!

Libuše Vepřek came to the Human Computation Institute to study Stall Catchers. Libuše introduced herself to the Stall Catchers community in 2022 through this blog post [https://calendly.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.hcinst.org%2Fhello-from-libuse%2F] - so if you need a refresher, feel free to take

Stall Catchers Featured

Stall Catchers is celebrating its 8 year anniversary!

Oh, and I'm back... For now at least! 😜 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello to all past, current and future catchers! For those who don't know me - I am Eglė, co-founder of Stall Catchers [https://stallcatchers.com/]. And for those who do - HI, I've missed you

Science Featured

Where do robots get their motives?

Who determines what values a robot has? Who determines what is right for society and what is wrong? And what does the guy who made the computer mouse have do with any of this? (Hint: it's more than you might think😉) Luckily, you can hear how it all

Citizen Science Badges

Stall Catchers has a Girl Scouts Patch!

It doesn’t get more official than this: the Stall Catchers citizen science project [https://youtu.be/-DI97ITiiMk] now has it’s very own Girl Scouts patch! (scroll down to watch the video) (I’m not sure if we’ve been this excited since Lake Hazel Middle School won and

Microsoft

A Record-Breaking Month of Volunteerism: Microsoft's Annual Giving Campaign 2023!

Grateful for Every Click – How Microsoft volunteers gave Alzheimer's research a huge boost through Stall Catchers

Science

The mind behind Alzheimer’s disease and a look into his lab

Wait, the Human Computation Institute team was in Germany?? Yes! We found ourselves in the city of Munich for the Hybrid Human Artificial Intelligence Conference to gather ideas and feedback about our new Beta Catchers project (more on that in future posts). While we were there, we were lucky enough

Science Featured

The PLX dataset: what is the role of microglia in dementia risk?

What do microglia have to do with dementia risk? That’s the question you are helping to answer when you analyze the current dataset in Stall Catchers.

Alzheimers

Stroke data in Stall Catchers!

It turns out that we can use Stall Catchers not only for Alzheimer's research, but also for stroke research!  And if you're familiar with Stall Catchers, you might notice that the new stroke data set looks a bit different - there's a reason for

Conferences

What is Gamification and How Does it Affect Us? Why You're ACTUALLY Addicted to Your Phone

Gamification is all around us and I bet you'd be able to find an example of it in your own life.

Catchathons

Catchathon 2023 Results are in!!🎉

We have completed over 2/3rds of the dataset as of this blog post, which is AMAZING! Thank you to everyone who took part in this Catchathon. We can’t wait for the next one!

Catchathons

Catchathon 2023: HUGE Thank You to Everyone!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who joined this years Catchathon, it was a blast playing with you all!

Catchathons

The competition is heating up in the last full day of the Catchathon

Originally it took us about a month to complete the dataset, but you amazing humans have cut that time in half! But it’s not over yet, and there are many more stalls to catch.

Catchathons

Check the Live Leaderboard for true dataset progress!

We found that the progress bar in the VM is misbehaving, so pay attention to the progress bar on the Live Leaderboard

Catchathons

Double Points Schedule!

As we promised you at the Kick-off, here is the double points schedule for the week.

Catchathons

Check the agenda for our 2023 International #catchathon !🤩

Even though you can participate in Stall Catchers anytime, join us for a special one-week long event!

Catchathons

Call your teammates... Stall Catchers Catchathon is back!

We are excited to invite you to the Stall Catchers Annual International Catchathon 2023, partnering with SciStarter and celebrating Citizen Science Month!

Stall Catchers

The First Annual “Stalling Summit”

What happens when world class Alzheimer’s researchers and stroke researchers put their heads together to help each other?  Among other things, they turn to Stall Catchers with some new requests for help from our loyal community of catchers! Researchers from Cornell University, Boston University, and the Human Computation Institute

Science

We are looking for volunteers! Join the Beta Catchers beta-test

Join our Beta-test (no pun intended) by playing our new citizen science game to speed up Alzheimer's research. The first 100 participants to complete the study and answer a short survey will receive an Amazon gift card.