People
Faculty
Tuğrulcan Elmas
Tuğrulcan Elmas is a Lecturer in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. He is a co-director of the Social Media Analysis and Support for Humanity (SMASH) group. His research focuses on computational methods to understand and counter social media manipulation, leveraging data science, security, and machine learning techniques. He received his Ph.D. from EPFL in 2022, and spent a year as a postdoctoral scholar at Indiana University's Observatory on Social Media (OSOME).
Tod Van Gunten
Tod Van Gunten is a comparative economic and political sociologist with interests in social networks, development, organizations, globalization, the sociology of knowledge and professions, and sociological theory. His empirical research centers on elite political networks and the economic sociology of financial institutions, particularly in Latin America.
Walid Magdy
Walid Magdy is a faculty member at the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation (ILCC), part of the School of Informatics, the Univeristy of Edinburgh. He is also a faculty fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. His main expertise is in computational social science, data mining, and natural language processing. He holds a PhD degree from the School of Computing, Dublin City University (DCU). He has a large industrial background from working earlier for Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), Microsoft, and IBM.
Björn Ross
Björn Ross is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Computational Social Science at the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics, in the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation. In his research, he primarily uses computational methods from agent-based modelling, natural language processing and social network analysis to study social media and related technologies. A key focus of his research is to explore different aspects of social media, such as misinformation, hate speech, and the malicious use of automation (bots), as well as how social media can be used effectively for social good, such as in crisis communication.
Aybuke Atalay
Aybuke Atalay is a Teaching Fellow at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. Her research sits at the intersection of computational social science and political communication, with a particular focus on automated accounts and their role in social media manipulation and online disinformation in hybrid regimes. Her PhD thesis examines social bots in the Turkish Twittersphere.
Zeerak Talat
Zeerak Talat (They/Them) is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Responsible Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at the Centre for Technomoral Futures and the School of Informatics, where they are a member of the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation, at the University of Edinburgh, and they are a Faculty Fellow at the Distributed AI Research Institute. Zeerak works on the intersection between machine learning, science and technology studies, and media studies. Their research seeks to examine how machine learning systems interact with our societies and the downstream effects of introducing machine learning to our society through the lens of content moderation technologies.Speakers
Teaching Assistants
Artemis Deligianni
I am a CDT in Natural Language Processing student in my 2nd year. Previously, I completed my undergrad in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Currently my work uses a combination of psychological and NLP methods to study misogyny and how people think about it in various settings.Participants
Sarthak Pradhan
Sarthak is an Assistant Professor at the Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy based out of Bengaluru, India. Sarthak teaches and researches economics, public finance and systems thinking. Before his foray into the public policy space, he worked as an engineer at Samsung R&D and later in the finance sector. Sarthak has completed the Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in Public Policy from the Takshashila Institution. He holds a dual degree (Electrical & Electronics and Physics) from BITS Pilani.
Yannic Hinrichs
Yannic is a PhD Candidate in Psychology at the University of Oslo, Norway. He analyses how psychology and technology interact during political opinion formation, e.g. how bots or algorithms can affect individuals' political views. In his thesis, he studies the spread of political mistrust via social media using natural language processing (NLP) and network analysis.
Charlotte de Alwis
Charlotte de Alwis recently started a position as a PhD candidate and research associate in the Department of Computational Social Science at GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. She is part of the Designed Digital Data team, where she contributes to the development of a survey app for intensive longitudinal study designs. Her methodological research interests include experimental designs, quantitative text analysis, and other computational social science methods. Substantively, her work focuses on election studies, public opinion research, and (social) media analysis.
Christina Theodora Mazilu
Christina Mazilu (they/she) is a research assistant in Geography and Environment at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Their current research explores human-nature relationships using natural language processing. They received their MA in Sociology at the University of Aberdeen and plan to continue with postgraduate studies which bridge society, technology, and environment.
Konstantin Strömel
Konstantin Strömel is a postgraduate student in the MSc program 'Future Governance' at the University of Edinburgh. He's interested in the impact of big data and technology on policy-making and democracies. Through his undergraduate degree in 'Cognitive Science,' he has a diverse interdisciplinary academic background, with a focus on Computational Linguistics, AI, Neuroscience, and Philosophy. In his research, he worked at the intersection of natural language processing (NLP) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). For example, on AI in education, disinformation detection, and fitness tracker data interpretation using Large Language Models (LLMs).
Angela Gutierrez
Angela is an MSc student in Future Governance at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh. Her research interests lie in the role of social media platforms in shaping political communication, with a particular interest in how digital spaces influence public discourse and political behaviour. She is currently developing her skills in computational methods to enhance her analysis of online political content and user interaction.
Zihan
I’m a sociology major with a focus on social network analysis and sociology of consumption in the digital era. I’m passionate about using research to explore how social media reshapes traditional patterns of communication and dissemination.
Pelin Yüce
Pelin Yüce is a PhD candidate in Educational Administration at Middle East Technical University. Also, she works as a doctoral fellow in a project on international research collaboration, supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. Her research interests include internationalization in higher education, international collaboration and higher education policy.
Alhasan Abdellatif
Alhasan Abdellatif is a research scientist with a PhD in Deep Generative Models from Heriot-Watt University. He has contributed to development of image generative models for geoscience modelling problems and predictive models for biomedical problems. His research interests lie in applying deep learning to advance scientific discovery and solve complex problems across science and technology.
Xiangruo Dai
Xiangruo Dai is a Ph.D student in Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His doctoral thesis analyses the stratification in fields of study and institutions of higher education within Scotland. Previously, he obtained a MA in Social and Public Policy from the University of Leeds and a BA in Economics from Haverford College.
Devon Rojas
Devon Rojas is a PhD student in Sociology at Harvard. His current research looks at intragroup boundary-work and change among LGBTQ+ groups over the last 50 years using natural language processing techniques and experimental methods. Devon holds a B.S. in Physics from University of California, San Diego.
Aliah Zewail
Aliah Zewail is a social psychology PhD student at UMass Amherst investigating the historical origins of cultural and moral values and their impact on societal institutions. She uses psychometrics, econometrics, and computational methods to pursue her questions. Aliah received her BA in psychology from the UT Austin.
Xianqi Cao
Xianqi Cao is currently an MPhil student in Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include historical political economy and Chinese politics, with a specialized focus on bureaucracy in imperial China. His recent work investigates the state’s institutional strategies to strengthen information gathering and processing, as well as the resulting political consequences.
Hannah Kim
Hannah Hok Kim is a postdoctoral researcher split between the MIT Libraries, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Harvard University Department of Psychology. She studies social and moral cognitive development, with a particular interest in how children use rules or procedures to coordinate group decisions.
Fatih Aktas
Fatih Aktas is a Lecturer at Moray House School of Education and Sport – the University of Edinburgh, where he is on the steering committee of the Comparative Education and International Development (CEID) Research Group and the Academic Cohort Lead for the MSc CEID programme. His main research interests include comparative and international education policy analysis, creativity and innovation in higher education, and education financing.
Rebecca Owens
Rebecca is a Postdoctoral Researcher in AI Law at Durham University and holds a PhD in Law from the University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on the regulation of emerging technologies and the empowerment of digital citizens. Employing a mixed-methods approach, she produces empirically grounded insights, informing policy design.
Paxia Ksatryo
Paxia Ksatryo is a PhD Candidate at the Research Training Group DYNAMICS, jointly organized by the Hertie School and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Their research explores how online information controls are used to legitimize the political control of vulnerable communities. Before joining DYNAMICS, Paxia earned an MPP at the Hertie School and a BA in Comparative Politics (Europe-Asia) at Sciences Po Paris.
Katelyn Nutley
Katelyn Nutley is a doctoral candidate at the University of St Andrews researching partisanship and police response. She was previously at the University of Cologne, where she worked on gendered citation dynamics [paper forthcoming]. She is now a computational analyst for PeaceRep at the University of Edinburgh and affiliated with Chatham House and the British Academy.
Yining Wang
Yining Wang is a doctoral student at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Germany. She uses computational methods to study digital ephemerality, with a focus on content deletion, behavioral traces, and collective memory across social media platforms.