Beatrice Magistro

Beatrice Magistro is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working with Michael Alvarez. In 2025, she will join Northeastern University as an Assistant Professor in AI Governance. Previously, she held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Munk School of Global Affairs and the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society at the University of Toronto, under Peter Loewen. She earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Washington in 2021.

Her research bridges political economy and political behavior, focusing on how socioeconomic shocks like AI, climate change, and globalization shape political preferences. Her forthcoming book, Who Thinks Like an Economist? (Cambridge University Press), examines how economic mental models drive populism and nationalism. She employs experimental designs and survey data to study societal transformations, with a focus on AI governance and policy trade-offs.

Her work also intersects with soccer to explore issues like racial discrimination, as seen in a Guardian-covered study on Italian Serie A officiating. She contributed to the UW’s COVID-19 State Policy Project, analyzing pandemic responses in the U.S. Her research spans journals in political science, environmental policy, and economics, addressing topics from AI ethics to climate mitigation strategies.

Magistro’s academic trajectory reflects a commitment to understanding how technological and environmental shifts impact democratic institutions and public welfare. Her upcoming role at Northeastern underscores growing scholarly attention to AI’s governance challenges.