People
Organisers
Richard Barnett
Richard is a lecturer in the Department of Information Science at Stellenbosch University. He is a co-founder of the Computational Social Science Group at SU and is the group's resident Computer Scientist. His current research focus is on deep learning on graphs.
Douglas Parry
Douglas is a lecturer in the Department of Information Science at Stellenbosch University. He is a co-founder of the Cognition and Technology Research group and his research concerns the interplay between digital technologies, human cognition, behaviour, performance, and affective well-being across a variety of life-situations.
Petrus Schoonwinkel
Petrus is a lecturer in the Department of Information Science at Stellenbosch University. He completed his masters in social network analysis, specialising in classification of social media accounts and is a member of the Computational Social Science Group. His research focuses on using machine learning and computational social science to identify automated agents on Twitter.Participants
Ifedotun Aina
Ifedotun Aina is a doctoral student in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. He is specializing in water resources management and public policies under drought. He is interested in learning new methodological skills that would be useful in understanding the optimal allocation of urban water resources and environmental sustainability. He is also interested in exploring computational methods that would aid in understanding the effects of piped water pricing on households’ choice of water source and the implications of transaction costs for groundwater policy regime implementation to mitigate water scarcity.
Saptarko Biswas
Saptarko Biswas is a Doctor of Law candidate at Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, Germany, and has been awarded the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation doctoral scholarship. Previously, he completed his Master’s in European and International Law at Saarland University, Germany, with the DAAD scholarship.
Lee Blake
Lee Blake is a master's student in research psychology at Stellenbosch University. He has a background in advertising as a copywriter and strategist spanning ten years. His thesis focuses on an empirical investigation of the role that childhood contact norms and intergroup experiences play in determining acculturation strategies and psychosocial outcomes in educational settings characterised by diversity and social hierarchies.
Shaka Bob
PhD in Sociology Candidate
Konstantin Bogatyrev
Konstantin Bogatyrev is a PhD student in Public Policy at Bocconi University in Milan. He majored in economics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, followed by a master’s at Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Humboldt University, Berlin. In 2019, he started his PhD to pursue a research career.
Annie Burger
Annie Burger is a PhD candidate at the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University. The focus of her PhD study is the effective use of plain language. She has experience in information design and learning design.
Mennatullah Hendawy
An assistant lecturer at the Department of Urban Planning and Design in Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and a Ph.D. Candidate at the Chair of Urban Design, TU Berlin who submitted her dissertation. She is a member of the urban AI network and the project is relevant to her Ph.D. thesis on the mediatization of planning and how different forms of media become a question of social and spatial justice. Mennatullah’s role in the project is social justice and urban communication expert and post-doctoral researcher with previous experience of teaching Cairo’s urban planners.
Eric Magale
Magale is PhD candidate in Development studies at the University of Pretoria under the Human Economy Programme. His research explores financial inclusion in Kenya through the lens of digital and co-operative lending models. He holds a Master’s degree in Development Finance from the GSB University of Cape Town and is a Chartered Accountant (ACCA).
Theo Maseloanyane
Theo is an Mphil Candidate in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on evaluating mobile e-government as a channel to broaden access to public services in the developing world. Recently, she worked on emerging technology policy (such as AI and IoT) as well as privacy legislation at Intel.
Katherine Steinke
I am a postgraduate student in History at Stellenbosch. I am doing my thesis on the history of aviation. In my free time, I enjoy running and art projects. I enjoy learning and being able to network.
Jeanré Süllwald
Jeanré Süllwald is a master's student at Stellenbosch University. She holds BCom and BCom Hons degrees in business management, specialising in marketing management. Her master's thesis examines the interplay between fanaticism and toxicity in online video gaming communities and the subsequent effect it has on customer acquisition and retention. While pursuing her degree, Jeanré also works at a tech startup in Stellenbosch. This, in conjunction with her research being in the digital realm, has sparked an interest in data science and data analytics.