Brooke Foucault Welles

Brooke Foucault Welles is a Professor of Communication Studies and the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Partnerships at Northeastern University's College of Arts, Media and Design. She founded the Communication, Media, and Marginalization (CoMMLab) and co-authored the award-winning book #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press, 2020). Her research focuses on computational social science, digital activism, and communication power dynamics.

• PhD in Media, Technology and Society from Northwestern University
• MS and BS in Communication from Cornell University

Her work examines:

• Network structures in social movements like #MeToo and #Ferguson
• Racial and gender justice in digital spaces
• Open source community leadership
• Health information diffusion
• Civic engagement in youth digital activism

Recent publications address:

• Computational methods for analyzing social dynamics
• Political polarization in health discourse
• Harmful content detection models
• Information loss in communication networks

Scientific recognition includes:

• Excellence in Teaching Award (2017)
• Best Paper Honorable Mention (CSCW 2019)
• Best Reviewer Award (ASIS&T 2023)
• Finalist, 2021 Research Prize in Public Interest Communications

She mentors a diverse lab team and collaborates across disciplines to address:

• Structural inequities in digital platforms
• Community resilience through network analysis
• Open source software governance