Kokil Jaidka

Kokil Jaidka is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore (NUS), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She is the founding Principal Investigator of the SMOL (Social Media, Online behavior and Language) project, focusing on computer-mediated communication and online human behavior.

Her research spans social media analytics, computational social science, digital well-being, and ethical AI. She has contributed to policy discussions on age verification and platform regulation in Singapore and has developed tools like Twilly and SMOLgram for longitudinal online experiments.

Her recent scholarly work explores emotional expression in political discourse, emoji use in digital communication, affordances of social platforms, misinformation dynamics, and ethical frameworks for computational research. She advocates for responsible experimentation and has co-developed ethical guidelines for top-tier conferences.

Key research trends in her recent publications include:

• Use of NLP and machine learning to analyze social media content
• Design and ethics of longitudinal online behavioral studies
• Impact of platform design on user behavior and well-being
• Political communication and disinformation in digital spaces
• Policy implications of social media governance

Her scientific contributions emphasize interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of communication, computer science, and psychology.

As a PI and faculty member, she leads the SMOL research team, mentors students, and secures research grants for innovative projects in digital behavior. She actively engages with public discourse through blog posts and media collaborations, translating academic insights for broader audiences.

She has developed and shared resources for online experimentation using platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk, oTree, Empirica, and custom-built tools, supporting open and reproducible research practices.