Hello, I'm Margie Ruffin, Ph.D.

I am an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Spelman College and a Faculty Fellow with the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative. I earned my PhD at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where my research focused on deepfakes, disinformation, and AI-generated content detection; and on how people perceive and are affected by manipulated media. My work has appeared at various domestic and international conferences. However, I pride myself on the work I do in the classroom and community just as much as I do in the lab, shown through my teaching, service, and advising of the SpelBots Robotics Team.

Deepfakes & Disinformation AI-Generated Content Detection Security & Privacy HCI & Usability

Research

What I work on

A quick look at my active research threads — see the Research page for the full picture.

Security & Privacy in AI-Generated Media

Research · Ongoing

Security & Privacy in AI-Gen Media

Two current threads: building better detectors for AI-generated video, and analyzing the real-world harm that video causes once it spreads — looking past "is it fake" to "what damage does it do."

Research · ICWSM 2025

Training Humans to Spot Fake Media

Security and trust aren't just an algorithm problem — evaluating training strategies that measurably improve people's own ability to detect deepfake images, not just a model's.

Research · ICWSM 2024–2026

Deepfakes & Disinformation

Studying how deepfake-enabled profiles and manipulated images shape perceptions of disinformation, and how to train people to better detect them — published at ICWSM 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Selected Works

Highlighted projects

Three projects that best represent the range of what I work on.

Detecting and understanding harm in AI-generated video

Research · Current Focus

Detecting & Understanding Harm in AI-Generated Video

My current research centers on two connected threads: building stronger detectors for AI-generated video, and studying the real-world harm that video causes once it spreads — moving past whether content is fake to what damage it actually does.

Teaching · Spelman College

Teaching & Course Development

I am focused on building and evolving the CS and data science curriculum at Spelman. I have developed original courses (e.g.,The Art of Data Collection) and implemented widely known ones (e.g., Berkeley's Data8 -Foundations of Data Science). This work is done support college's Data Science for HBCUs initiative.

Outreach · SpelBots

SpelBots Faculty Advising

The SpelBots are Spelman College’s all-Black-women robotics team in Atlanta, Georgia. As a former member and captain, it brings me great joy to now serve as their faculty advisor. This postion involves advising the SpelBots team through competitions, hackathons, and community service.

Recent

News

May 2026

Two new papers accepted: "Improving Detection and Understanding the Effects..." at ConPro 2026, and "Pay to Win: Copyright Infringement..." at ICWSM 2026.

Nov 2025

Joined the AUC Data Science Initiative as a Faculty Fellow.

Aug 2025

Started as Assistant Professor, Tenure-Track, in Computer Science at Spelman College.

See all news →