Kerk F. Kee

Biography

Kerk F. Kee (Ph.D., 2010, University of Texas at Austin; www.ekerk.com) is a communication researcher and an interdisciplinary social scientist of innovation diffusion. His research primarily investigates the development, adoption, implementation, and the ultimate diffusion of big data technologies and collaborative cyberinfrastructure in scientific organizations. He also studies the dissemination of health information in cultural communities and the spread of pro-environmental attitudes in modern societies. His research has been funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Academy of Sciences, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in multiple solo and collaborative grants, totaling over US$13M to date. He received a prestigious 5-year NSF CAREER grant in 2015, awarded by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure under NSF's Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate. According to Google Scholar Citations in March 2025, his research has been cited more than 8,280 times.

Research

Kerk's diffusion research to date primarily focuses on technological innovations (e.g., artificial intelligence, collaborative cyberinfrastructure, social media), and secondarily in behavioral innovations (e.g., health prevention, workplace safety, water conservation). New diffusion projects explore innovations such as AI chatbots/ conversation agents and collaborative robots/ co-bots. He also has interests in studying mass communication and information diffusion for natural disaster management, creative industries, smart cities, and entrepreneurial startups.

Kerk is currently recruiting under/graduate students to join his research group at TTU, the Innovation Diffusion Lab.

He is also accepting advisees interested in working on theses/dissertations related to the diffusion of innovations theory, organizational/professional/corporate communication, and emerging technologies (e.g., cyberinfrastructure, artificial intelligence, robots, chatbots, blockchain, social media, etc.) in the workplace setting. Contact him directly if interested.

Selected Publications

• Kee, K. F., & Jitkajornwanich, K. (forthcoming). Diffusion of innovations as strategic communication. In S. A. Bowen & E. Erzikova (Eds.), Handbook of innovations in strategic communication. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Kee, K. F., & Dearing, J. W. (2024). Diffusion. In V. D. Miller & M. S. Poole (Eds.), Organizational communication theory and research (pp. 187-215). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
• Xu, S., Kee, K. F., Li, W., Yomamoto, M. & Riggs, R. (2023). Examining the diffusion of innovations from a dynamic, differential-effects perspective: A longitudinal study of AI adoption among employees. Communication Research. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00936502231191832

• Shin, D., Kee, K.F., & Shin, E. Y. (2022). Algorithm awareness: Why user awareness is critical for personal privacy in the adoption of algorithmic platform? International Journal of Information Management, 65, e6192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2022.102494 
• Kee, K.F., Le, B., & Jitkajornwanich, K. (2021). If you build it, promote it, and they trust you, then they will come: Diffusion strategies for science gateways and cyberinfrastructure adoption to harness big data in the STEM community. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 33, e6192. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.6192 

• Matei, S. A., & Kee, K. F. (2019). Computational communication research. WIREs: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 9, 4. https://doi.org/10.1002/widm.1304 

• Liang, Y. J., & Kee, K. F. (2018). Developing and validating the A-B-C framework of information diffusion on social media. New Media & Society, 20, 272-292. DOI: 10.1177/1461444816661552

• Robertson, B. W., & Kee, K. F. (2017). Social media at work: The roles of job satisfaction, employment status, and Facebook use with co-workers. Computers in Human Behavior.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.12.080 

• Kee, K. F., Sparks, L., Struppa, D. C., Mannucci, M., & Damiano, A. (2016). Information diffusion, Facebook clusters, and the simplicial model of social aggregation: A computational simulation of simplicial diffusers for community health interventions. Health Communication, 31, 385-399. DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2014.960061.

Teaching Focus

• Diffusion of Innovations, Mass Communication, Organizational Communication, Research Methods.

Leadership & Awards

• 2024 Nancy J. Bell Graduate Faculty Excellence in Mentoring Award, The Graduate School, Texas Tech University.
• 2024 Global Engagement Award, Office of International Affairs, Texas Tech University.
• 2022 Phil Andrews Award (shared with S. Chaudhry, A. Pazouki, P. Schmitz, & E. Hillery), Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC) Conference, Boston, MA.
• 2022 Outstanding Research Award, Office of Research & Innovation, Texas Tech University.
• 2022 Ross Faculty Achievement Award (shared with I. Coman), College of Media & Communication, Texas Tech University.
• 2021-2026 CI CoE: CI Compass: An NSF Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Center of Excellence for Navigating the Major Facilities Data Lifecycle (Award OAC #2127548, US$280,921.00 to TTU). National Science Foundation. Senior Personnel: Kerk Kee, in collaboration with Ewa Deelman, Anirban Mandal, Angela Murillo, Jaroslaw Nabrzyski, and Valerio Pascucci).
• 2021-2022 EAGER: An Actor-Network Investigation of the XSEDE Project (Award SES #2140226, US$50,311.00 to TTU). National Science Foundation. Co-PI: Kerk Kee, in collaboration with Richard Knepper, Cornell University; Winona Snapp-Childs, Indiana University).
• 2020-2023 CORE Conversational Agents for Supporting Sustainable Implementation and Systemic Diffusion of Cyberinfrastructure and Science Gateways (Award OAC #2007100, US$199,975 to TTU). National Science Foundation. PI: Kerk Kee, in collaboration with Prasad Calyam & Satish Nair, University of Missouri-Columbia).
• 2020-2022 EAGER Leveraging Advanced Cyberinfrastructure and Developing Organizational Resilience for NSF Large Facilities in the Pandemic Era (Award OAC #2042055, US$169,491 to TTU). National Science Foundation. Lead PI: Kerk Kee, in collaboration with Ewa Deelman, University of Southern California).
• 2020-2022 STEM Training in Ethics of Publication Practices (STEPP) (Award SES #1926348, US$ 345,702 to TTU). The Cultivating Cultures of Ethical STEM (CCE STEM) Program, National Science Foundation. PI: Amy Koerber; Co-PIs: Karin Ardon-Dryer, Glenn Cummins, Lyombe Eko, Kerk Kee.
• 2015-2021 CAREER: Organizational Capacity and Capacity Building for Cyberinfrastructure Diffusion (Award ACI #1453864, US$519,753.00; US$242,255.00 to TTU), National Science Foundation. Sole PI: Kerk Kee.
• 2013-2018 VOSS: Computational Tools, Virtual Organizing, and Dynamic Innovation Diffusion (Award OAC #1322305, US$324,981.00), National Science Foundation. Sole PI: Kerk Kee.