The Digital Engagement Lab at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism

The Digital Engagement Lab, directed by Dr. Ronald Yaros at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, is an applied research and innovation center that develops new strategies to help diverse audiences discover, engage with, and trust news. An interdisciplinary team from journalism, computer science, information science, human-computer interaction, and cognitive psychology designs and evaluates innovative ways to present news that make it more interesting, interactive, and accessible to broader audiences.

The lab’s new Adaptive AI tools restructure original—rather than generate new—information into more selectable and interactive formats while preserving the integrity of the original content. For the first time, the technology presents news that simultaneously supports short-form and long-form engagement and has been rated by thousands of experimental participants as significantly more interesting, personalized, and interactive than traditional news formats. The Adaptive AI technology is based on the Digital Engagement Model, published in 2026.