Daniela Perrotta

Daniela Perrotta serves as Research Scientist and Deputy Head of the Laboratory of Migration and Mobility at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR), part of the Max Planck Society. Her role integrates computational methodologies with demographic research to analyze human mobility, migration flows, and public health dynamics using digital trace data from platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Her research expertise spans Migration Studies, Digital Demography, and Computational Social Science, with emphasis on methodological innovation in data collection. Key focus areas include gender disparities in professional migration, self-selection biases in online surveys, and the interplay between mobility patterns and infectious disease transmission. Her work frequently addresses real-world crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, examining behavioral responses to vaccination and mask mandates through cross-national digital surveys.

Recent publications (2020-2025) reveal a cohesive trajectory in leveraging unconventional data sources for demographic insights. Core themes include the application of social media analytics to migration studies, computational modeling of disease spread using mobility data, and rigorous evaluation of digital survey methodologies. This work bridges demography, epidemiology, and data science, often through large-scale international collaborations.

No scientific awards were documented in the source material.

Perrotta leads multiple MPIDR-funded projects including Estimating Fertility Indicators Using Digital Trace Data, Impact of Human Mobility on Spatial Dynamics of Infectious Diseases, and Studying International Migration of High-Skilled Professionals. These initiatives involve cross-institutional teams and utilize novel data streams to address demographic questions with policy relevance, though specific grant amounts or advising relationships are not detailed.

As Deputy Head of the Laboratory of Migration and Mobility within MPIDR’s Digital and Computational Demography research group, she oversees a specialized team developing computational frameworks for migration analysis. The lab operates at the intersection of demographic theory and big data analytics, contributing to MPIDR’s broader mission of advancing demographic science through methodological innovation.