Emilio Ferrara

Emilio Ferrara is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California (USC) with courtesy appointments in Communication (Annenberg School) and Preventive Medicine (Keck School of Medicine). He leads the Machine Intelligence and Data Science (MINDS) group and directs the HUMANS Lab, focusing on interdisciplinary research across computer science, social networks, and public health.

• Research expertise in social media manipulation, AI bias, and disinformation campaigns
• Developed algorithms like WERW-Kpath for edge centrality and CONCLUDE for community detection
• Principal Scientist at USC Information Sciences Institute
• Director of USC's PhD program in Computer Science

His work examines information diffusion, social bot operations, and AI ethics, with high-impact studies on:

• 2023: Bias in generative language models
• 2016-2017: Bot-driven election interference in US and France
• 2017: Extremist propaganda spread via social bots

Awardee of the Complex Systems Society 2016 Junior Scientific Award, he has mentored numerous PhD students including Adam Badawy (Capital One), Herbert Chang (Dartmouth), and Ashok Deb (West Point). His lab's tools like Python Data Scientist toolbox and election integrity initiatives demonstrate his commitment to both research and education.