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Professor Jana Lasser holds a professorship in Data Analysis at the University of Graz, where she leads the Complex Social & Computational Systems research group at the interdisciplinary IDea_Lab. She serves as Associate Faculty at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna and previously held positions at Graz University of Technology as a Marie Curie Fellow and interim professor at RWTH Aachen. Her educational background includes a PhD in Physics from Georg-August-University Göttingen (2019), conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, with research on salt desert pattern formation. Her academic journey reflects a transition from geophysics to computational social science. Lasser's research centers on emergent phenomena in complex social systems, employing machine learning, natural language processing, and computational modeling. Key interests include misinformation spread on social media, counterspeech effectiveness, social media recommendation algorithms' societal impact, and the fracturing of societal understanding of honesty. Her work combines theoretical frameworks with real-world applications through agent-based simulations and large-scale text analysis. Her recent publications reveal strong thematic coherence across computational social science, with significant focus on political communication dynamics, platform governance, and methodological innovation. The 15 most recent works demonstrate increasing integration of computational methods with social theory, particularly in analyzing truth-concept evolution in political discourse and developing alternative social media architectures. ERC Starting Grant 101160928 DeSiRe for designing social media recommendation algorithms FWF standalone project P 37280-N on conspiracy theory spread netidee SCIENCE prize for digital civic innovation Marie Curie Fellowship for postdoctoral research Lasser actively supervises graduate students in computational social science, with current focus on topics related to her ERC-funded project. She leads the Survey Special Interest Group within the COST Action on Researcher Mental Health, conducting Europe's largest benchmark study on academic mental health. Her lab maintains strong collaborations with the Complexity Science Hub Vienna and international institutions.

• Computational Social Science
• Misinformation Studies
• Social Media Algorithm Analysis
• +4 more

Jason Jeffrey Jones is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University. He earned his Ph.D. from UC San Diego in 2011 and directs CSSERG (Computational Social Science of Emerging Realities Group), a research team focused on cross-disciplinary computational methodologies to study emerging social phenomena. His research interests center on computational social science, with specific expertise in online experiments, social networks, high-throughput text analysis, and machine learning. Dr. Jones is particularly known for pioneering work in "Ipseology" - the scientific study of how individuals describe themselves, especially through digital platforms. His work examines humans' perceptions of themselves and the developing role of artificial intelligence in society, with recent focus on measuring identity trends through social media platforms like Twitter. Dr. Jones' research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including Nature, PLOS ONE, and Sociological Science, with work cited thousands of times. His findings have received significant media attention, appearing in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, and the Washington Post. His recent publications track LGBTQ visibility on Twitter, political identity expression, occupational identity evolution, and public attitudes toward AI. Stereotypical gender associations in language have decreased over time Effectiveness of virtual reality in evoking empathy Dynamics of gender stereotypes in language over decades Temporal trends in personally expressed identity Dr. Jones has also conducted notable research on social influence and political mobilization, including a landmark 61-million-person experiment during the 2012 US presidential election. His work on the relationship between political-party affiliation and behavior on dating sites like Ashley Madison has generated significant academic discussion. He is the author of the recently published book "Ipseology - A New Science of the Self" and maintains an active research presence through his website and social media channels.

• Computational Social Science
• Social Networks
• Ipseology
• +6 more

Umberto Famulari is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication at the Department of Journalism & Media Communication, Colorado State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Media and Communication from Indiana University, Bloomington (2022), an M.A. from Royal Holloway University, London, and a B.A. from the University of Milan, Italy. His research focuses on the intersection of multimedia storytelling, digital media, and political communication. Key areas include multimodal mediated representation's impact on audiences, multi-platform storytelling strategies, and the effects of visual-textual combinations on political attitudes and engagement. He examines how visual and verbal modes in digital media influence public perception of migrants, political candidates, and social policies. Recent work analyzes cross-national news framing of political candidates, visual migration policy coverage, and criminal trial reporting in U.S. digital news. His research emphasizes understanding the interplay between media systems, visual strategies, and audience responses in global contexts. No scientific awards or grants are explicitly listed in the provided materials. No lab affiliations or teams are mentioned in the text.

• Multimedia Storytelling
• Digital Media Analysis
• Visual Communication
• +5 more

Julian Droogan is Professor and Head of the School of International Studies at Macquarie University. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism and co-convenes the AVERT Research Network. His research focuses on online extremism, disinformation, South Asian violent extremism, and terrorist cultures, with projects funded by Australian and US defense departments, NSW Government, and US Institute of Peace. Research interests center on: Tracking extremist propaganda networks and narratives Youth engagement with violent online content Countering disinformation in Australia's region Developing societal resilience frameworks Publications show consistent focus on extremism evolution, with recent emphasis on pandemic exploitation by extremist groups, QAnon's pseudo-religious narratives, and regional counter-terrorism strategies. Articles increasingly incorporate computational methods for tracking online ecosystems. Grants include: $2.4M for regional disinformation research (2025) $500K for online information operations (2023) Multiple NSW government projects on extremism and COVID-19 Supervises PhD and Master's students while coordinating international partnerships with European, Middle Eastern, and South Asian institutions.

• Online Extremism
• Disinformation
• Terrorist Cultures
• +2 more

Nader Tavassoli is a Professor of Marketing at London Business School (LBS), where he has served since 2002. Previously, he held positions at MIT Sloan School of Management, including Associate Professor of Marketing and Richard Leghorn Professor of Entrepreneurship. He is the Faculty Advisor for LBS Publishing and founder of the Behavioural Research Lab and the Walpole Luxury Management Programme. A recipient of LBS' Excellence in Teaching Award, his research focuses on branding, consumer cognition, and marketing strategy. His academic journey includes a BA and MBA from Syracuse University and an MPhil/PhD from Columbia Business School. Nader has advised over 100 organizations, spanning Fortune 500 firms and startups, specializing in branding, internal brand management, and executive education. His work bridges academic research with practical business impact, emphasizing consumer behavior, cross-cultural marketing, and leadership. Key contributions include pioneering insights on employee-based brand equity, the role of branding in labor markets, and sustainable tourism pricing strategies. His recent articles explore topics like Red Bull's fashion expansion and Bhutan's tourism policies, reflecting his interest in innovative market strategies and global challenges. Nader’s awards highlight his teaching excellence, while his entrepreneurial spirit is evident in founding academic and industry programs. He remains active in executive education, offering courses on marketing, leadership, and luxury management.

• Branding
• Consumer Cognition
• Marketing
• +4 more

Zhongdang Pan is Professor of Communication Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in media effects, political communication, and cross-cultural studies. His research examines media's role in public deliberation across different sociopolitical contexts. Current research focuses on: Misinformation processing on social media Epistemic factors in information sharing Experimental methodology improvements Cross-cultural value comparisons Third-person perception mechanisms Recent work demonstrates strong emphasis on methodological rigor through statistical power analysis and addressing publication bias. His cross-national research program spans Chinese and American media systems, examining civic engagement patterns and value transmission. Professor Pan teaches courses in communication theory, media effects, and research methods. His quantitative work employs innovative approaches including meta-analysis, latent class analysis, and experimental designs to study media influences.

• Media Effects
• Political Communication
• Public Deliberation
• +3 more

Amber Moore is Assistant Professor of Teaching in Library, Literacy, and Teacher Education at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Education. Her research examines adolescent literacies, feminist pedagogies, and representations of sexual violence in young adult literature and popular culture. Moore investigates how trauma literature, particularly sexual assault narratives, is taught in English education and teacher preparation programs. Her scholarship employs arts-based methodologies including poetic inquiry to explore teacher candidates' responses to difficult content and fanfiction as a form of critical engagement. Research emphases include rape culture in educational contexts, feminist media analysis of Riverdale and Hallmark narratives, and pedagogical approaches to trauma literature. Recent publications explore allyship in fanfiction communities, epistolary education, and affective responses to YA sexual assault narratives.

• Trauma Literature Pedagogy
• Feminist Pedagogies
• YA Literature
• +3 more

Amalia S. Levi is a Researcher at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) within the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Her work focuses on archival studies, digital humanities, and colonial history with a particular emphasis on Jewish communities and slavery studies. Supervised by Prof. Dr. Michael Zeuske, Prof. Dr. Christian De Vito, and Prof. Dr. Jonathan Schorsch, her research explores archival silences, digitization ethics, and the intersection of technology with historical documentation. Her educational background and specific academic qualifications are not explicitly detailed in the provided materials, though her extensive publication record indicates advanced specialization in digital archiving methodologies and postcolonial historiography. Levi’s research interests coalesce around decolonizing archival practices, leveraging digital tools to recover marginalized narratives, and analyzing colonial-era records to address historical gaps. Her work bridges theoretical frameworks from archival science, Jewish studies, and slavery studies to propose innovative approaches for preserving underrepresented histories. Her most recent publications (2022–2025) highlight trends toward interrogating archival silences, digitizing colonial newspapers, and developing pedagogical strategies for engaging students with digital archives. She has contributed book reviews on pivotal works in Jewish archival history, further establishing her as a critical voice in the field. No scientific awards or grants are explicitly listed in the provided information. Her advising role remains undefined as no students are listed, though her supervisory relationships with senior faculty suggest collaborative research networks. Levi is affiliated with the BCDSS, a transdisciplinary research hub exploring dependency and slavery systems, and maintains active involvement in digital humanities initiatives. Her work often intersects with global projects like the Barbados Mercury Gazette digitization effort and Jewish archive cataloging in German regional archives.

• Digital Humanities
• Archival Studies
• Colonial History
• +3 more

Gloria Mark is a Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction (HCI), examining how technology impacts multitasking, attention, mood, and stress in daily life. She employs real-world, sensor-based studies to analyze digital media use and its effects on productivity and well-being. Her work spans domains like workplace efficiency, social media dynamics, and crisis response through technology. Mark's research emphasizes collaborative resilience in disrupted environments, such as natural disasters or conflicts, studying how Web 2.0 tools aid recovery. She has pioneered studies on interruption costs, demonstrating that while tasks are completed faster when interrupted, stress levels rise. Her findings have influenced policies on remote work and digital detox practices. Education: Ph.D. (assumed from title). Awards: SIGCHI Best Paper Award (2014), multiple Honorable Mentions for Best Paper in ACM conferences. Advising: Supervised 13 Ph.D. students and researchers, including Yiran Wang and Bryan Semaan. Mark has authored a popular book, Attention Span , and frequently engages with media to discuss digital distraction and productivity. Her lab's Tesserae Project conducts large-scale studies on information workers using multimodal sensing.

• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Multitasking
• Digital Media Use
• +5 more

Luke Heemsbergen is a Senior Lecturer in Communication at Deakin University's School of Communication and Creative Arts and the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation. His research explores the intersection of digital technologies and societal power structures, focusing on how emerging media reshape political communication, human-computer interaction, and cultural practices. He co-leads the Immersive Realities Theme at Deakin Motion Lab and coordinates the Critical Digital Interfaces and Infrastructures research group. Research interests include: Digital media's role in political engagement and activism Augmented/extended reality as tools for environmental and health communication Algorithmic governance in institutional contexts Critical approaches to synthetic media and AI creativity His recent publications demonstrate sustained focus on platform politics, with 9/15 articles analyzing social media's role in elections, activism, and misinformation. Methodologically, he employs innovative digital approaches like 'backend-in' platform analysis and multimodal data visualization. Thematically, articles cluster around: 1) Pandemic technologies and surveillance, 2) Algorithmic management in institutions, and 3) Immersive media design. Supervision includes 8 doctoral students working on projects like embodied human-machine interfaces, EdTech supply chains, and surveillance law reform. Funded projects include: Defining Communication in a Digital Era (ACCAN grant) Techno-Totalitarianism vs. Disruptive Technologies (Gerda Henkel Stiftung) VR Wayfinding Visitor Experience Model (ID Laboratory)

• Digital Communication
• Science and Technology Studies
• Augmented Reality
• +3 more

Dr. Usman Naseem is a Lecturer in Computing at Macquarie University’s School of Computing, Australia. Previously, he held academic roles at James Cook University and research fellowships at the University of Sydney and the University of South Australia. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Sydney and has over 10 years of industry experience in technical and leadership roles. Research Interests: NLP, multimodal analysis, and social computing, with focuses on socially aware methods for applications like cyber informatics, online sarcasm/opinion mining, low-resource language processing, and health informatics. He actively contributes to top-tier venues like ACL, EMNLP, and SIGIR. Grants & Awards: Recipient of the IEEE Transactions Best Paper Award (2022), DAAD AINet Fellowship (2023), and the Rising Star in AI Fellowship. His research has been funded by grants including Macquarie University’s MQRAS and Data Horizons initiatives. Recent Activities: Leads projects on combating AI-generated misinformation (VaxGuard grant), and has published extensively on topics like health misinformation detection, multimodal learning, and bias mitigation in AI systems. He is currently recruiting PhD and Master’s students in NLP, multimodality, and AI for social good. Labs & Collaborations: Affiliated with Macquarie’s Data Horizons Research Centre, Future Communications Research Centre, and Frontier AI Research Centre. Collaborates internationally on health informatics, social media analysis, and AI ethics.

• Natural Language Processing
• Multimodal Analysis
• Social Computing
• +7 more

Gunn Enli is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo and Vice-Dean for Studies at the Faculty of Humanities. Her research examines political communication, social media dynamics, and digital disconnection, with recent work focusing on authenticity in populist discourse and the challenges of digital overload. Enli's publications analyze how politicians navigate digital entrapment, media welfare state limitations regarding sustainability, and user responsibilization in digital policy. She received the Norwegian Media Researchers' Communication Award in 2020 for research dissemination excellence. Her current projects investigate digital detox practices and the paradoxes of disconnection in networked societies.

• Political Communication
• Social Media
• Digital Detox
• +2 more

James Miles, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta's Faculty of Education. His work focuses on history education, historical injustice, and curriculum reform. He teaches courses like EDEL 335 on social studies pedagogy and has been active in curriculum development initiatives addressing social and political pressures in Canadian education. His research explores topics such as reconciliation pedagogy, the use of digital media in classrooms, and decolonizing historical narratives. Dr. Miles holds a PhD and has conducted extensive research on difficult historical memory, including studies on Indigenous residential schools, historical bus tours, and museum pedagogies. His publications address themes like teleological history education, presentism critiques, and the ethical implications of teaching contentious historical topics. Recent works include co-authored books on historical justice and peer-reviewed articles in journals like History Education Research Journal and Memory Studies . His teaching emphasizes practical strategies for elementary educators, focusing on how social studies curricula can engage students with complex historical issues. Courses he teaches combine theoretical frameworks with hands-on planning for diverse classroom environments. Miles has also explored innovative teaching tools like YouTube videos and interdisciplinary approaches influenced by avant-garde movements such as Fluxus.

• History Education
• Historical Injustice
• Social Studies
• +3 more

Katlin Marisol Sweeney-Romero is an Assistant Professor of Cinema and Digital Media at the University of California, Davis. She holds a PhD in English with a Film Studies specialization from The Ohio State University (2023), an M.A. from San Diego State University, and a B.A. from California State University San Marcos. Her research focuses on Latinx digital media representation, particularly how Latinas use platforms like TikTok and YouTube to create cultural content and engage in ethnoracial identity discourse. She is also actively involved in comics studies, examining queer Latina mental health narratives and pedagogical approaches to teaching Latinx comics. Education: PhD, The Ohio State University (2023); M.A., San Diego State University; B.A., California State University San Marcos Professional Roles: Co-Coordinator of Programming & Marketing for The Latinx Comic Arts Festival; Social Media/Web Head for Comics Studies Society’s Graduate Student Caucus; Editorial Board Member of Amatl Comix Her work critiques the 'Hollywood Latin Look' trope in digital spaces and explores how beauty trends like 'Copy and Paste Latina Makeup' both empower and constrain Latina visibility. Recent publications include chapters in TikTok Cultures in the U.S. and Latinx TV in the 21st Century , alongside co-editing a special issue on Latinx nonfiction in Prose Studies . Her upcoming projects analyze YouTube beauty gurus and queer Latina mental health in graphic novels like Blackbird . She frequently presents at academic conferences, including a 2025 talk on TikTok beauty trends at UC Davis’ WRRC library.

• Latinx Media Representation
• Digital Media Studies
• Ethnoracial Identity in Social Media
• +3 more

Sharon Meraz is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), specializing in political communication and networked journalism. Her work bridges mass media theory with digital technologies, examining how social media shapes political engagement and activism. She holds a PhD in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. Education PhD in Journalism, University of Texas at Austin Research Interests Meraz explores the intersection of social media and political discourse through methodologies like social network analysis, natural language processing, and big data visualization. Her work investigates phenomena such as network agenda setting, viral content dynamics, and the role of digital platforms in political mobilization during elections and social movements. Recent Research Trends Her publications analyze partisan exposure in political blogs, rumor propagation in digital spaces, and the role of Twitter in shaping political discourse during events like the Arab Spring and U.S. elections. She emphasizes theoretical innovations like networked framing and memetics in media studies. Teaching Courses include social network theories, media effects, and seminars on social media and political communication.

• Political Communication
• Networked Journalism
• Mass Media Theory
• +5 more