Inferring organizational titles in online communication

There is increasing interest in the storage, retrieval, and analysis of email communications. One active area of research focuses on the inference of properties of the underlying social network giving rise to the email communications[1,2]. Email communication between individuals implies some type of relationship, whether it is formal, such as a manager-employee relationship, or informal, such as friendship relationships. Understanding the nature of these observed relationships can be problematic given there is a shared context among the individuals that isn’t necessarily communicated. This provides a challenge for analysts that wish to explore and understand email archives for legal or historical research.