Austin van Loon

Austin van Loon is Assistant Professor of Work and Organization Studies at MIT Sloan School of Management. His research investigates the intersection of culture, identity, and intergroup conflict, and develops AI methodologies for social science research. He examines how genuine worldview differences contribute to conflict and designs interventions to foster cross-group understanding.

Education: PhD in Sociology from Stanford University, BS in Sociology and BA in Psychology from University of Iowa.

Research interests include:

• Identity dynamics in intergroup conflicts
• Latent cognitive differences in social influence
• Dehumanization mechanisms
• Natural language processing for social theory

Recent publications demonstrate innovative integration of machine learning with experimental social science. Articles frequently address polarization reduction through computational analysis of language and cognitive patterns.