Fabrício Benevenuto

Fabrício Benevenuto is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), where he conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of social media analysis, data science, and computational journalism. His work spans complex networks, machine learning, and natural language processing with strong societal impact.

His research focuses on social media dynamics, particularly in Brazilian contexts, with major contributions to hate speech detection, fake news analysis, and political discourse monitoring. He leads large-scale projects against misinformation, including development of systems like WhatsApp Monitor, Media Bias Monitor, and Purple Feed. His work combines technical innovation with real-world applications for election transparency and public discourse integrity.

Benevenuto's recent publications demonstrate strong trends in multilingual NLP for social media analysis, with emphasis on Brazilian Portuguese contexts. His team produces both theoretical contributions and practical systems addressing hate speech, misinformation, and media bias. Notable methodological approaches include combining network analysis with linguistic features, developing culturally-aware detection systems, and creating large annotated datasets for understudied languages.

• CAPES award for best Brazilian computer science thesis (2010)
• Humboldt Foundation scholarship recipient (2017-2018)
• Member of TikTok Safety Advisory Council
• WWW'20 Best Paper Nominee & CNIL-INRIA Privacy Protection Prize winner
• Multiple best paper awards at CEAS, WBC, and ICWSM conferences
• Test-of-Time Award at ICWSM'20

Benevenuto actively mentors PhD and MSc students, with numerous advisees securing academic positions at Brazilian universities and research roles at institutions like Max Planck Institute. His projects often receive funding supporting interdisciplinary collaborations across computer science and social sciences. Current work includes large-scale analysis of Telegram political groups, real-time election monitoring systems, and developing culturally-aware NLP tools for Portuguese.

He leads research teams working on social media analysis systems with societal impact, particularly focused on Brazilian digital ecosystems. Projects involve cross-institutional collaborations with researchers from MPI-SWS, Max Planck Institute, and various Brazilian universities, emphasizing practical applications for public discourse integrity.