Lukas Erhard

Lukas Erhard is a part-time interdisciplinary PhD student at the University of Stuttgart, affiliated with the Institute of Social Sciences and the Department of Computational Social Science. He works at the Interchange Forum for Reflecting on Intelligent Systems (SRF IRIS), focusing on merging machine learning with sociological research to study complex societal issues.

• Education: M.A. in Sociology and Sociological Research (University of Bremen, 2015-2018); B.A. in Sociology/Psychology (University of Jena, 2011-2015)

His research emphasizes machine learning techniques in social science contexts, particularly studying media influence on public opinion, populism detection, and interdisciplinary research dynamics. He develops computational tools like the PopBERT model for analyzing political discourse and co-authored studies on media effects on immigration concerns.

Key publications include a 2024 Political Analysis article on populism detection, a 2023 book chapter on ML-statistics integration, and co-authored 2022 studies on interdisciplinary early-career researchers and immigration attitudes in Germany. His work bridges social science theory with computational methodologies.