Desmond Patton

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Dr. Desmond Upton Patton was the keynote speaker for the Jane Addams College of Social Work 10th Annual Training Institute for School Social Work Professionals. His presentation “Impact of Social Media on Youth” was innovative and inspiring. He explored the intersection of youth, gang violence and social media, as well as the use of cutting-edge technology to understand the ways youth express themselves on social media. His research in this area is both pioneering and proactive, and can shape the future of mental health practice in schools. He is a presenter that should be included on every school district’s in-service training agenda. You will not be disappointed with his outstanding presentation style, and the amazing content that he shares.

Annette JohnsonClinical Associate Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago

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The University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign invited Dr. Patton to share his work as part of our inaugural seminar series called, 'Harnessing Technology for Social Good.' Dr. Patton agreed to be a part of the seminar right away. His talk was the last scheduled seminar for the year and one of the most highly anticipated talks given the topic. Without question, Dr. Patton delivered. His talk blew the audience away. I was particularly struck by how his presentation captivated both the minds and the hearts of people in the audience, which in my mind was no easy task because he was speaking to academic faculty and 8th graders from the Southside of Chicago. Dr. Patton did a terrific job of engaging everyone in the room. At the end of the talk, Dr. Patton met with the students 1:1 and talked about his career trajectory and pathway to academia, again captivating young people in ways that was inspiring. I would highly recommend Dr. Patton as a speaker.

Judy HavlicekPh.D., Associate Professor, University of Illinois

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The Hunter College (CUNY) partner site of the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) recently invited Dr. Patton to serve as a guest speaker at our location. The audience was mainly comprised of doctoral students from across the social and health sciences, from over 8 top-ranked universities across the country, and we discussed the myriad issues involved in using social media data for social science inquiry. Dr. Patton’s real-world examples of the complexity of social media posts, particularly from marginalized communities, and his compelling and clear descriptions of best analytic practices was instrumental in shaping our participants’ understanding of ethical approaches to the analysis of digital trace data. Our audience was just being introduced to these data and methods, and Dr. Patton’s clear, concise, and plain language facilitated their engagement with these topics in a concrete fashion. Dr. Patton was highly responsive and exceeded our requirements in every regard. In short, Dr. Patton is a tremendous public scholar, and it was our pleasure to work with him. I would highly recommend Dr. Patton as a speaker.

Maria Y. RodriguezMSW, PhD., Assistant Professor, Silberman School of Social Work, CUNY

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Dr. Desmond Patton’s participation in our company’s team building event was immensely impactful. In response to the events of 2020, Vinli held a panel discussion workshop on the theme of “Identity, Expression and Bias”. Dr. Patton’s expertise and thoughtful commentary were instrumental in driving our exploration, helping us to reveal and question many assumptions on how we interpret interactions with people, events, and data in general. And as a software company in the big data space, we found that Dr. Patton did a phenomenal job of creating real connections between his social work research and themes Vinli staff encounter in our own work. For those in search of insightful, enlightening discourse experiences for your organization, he is an excellent choice of partner. Dr. Patton was a pleasure to work with, and we highly recommend him for your next event.

Mark HaidarFounder and CEO, Vinli