People
Faculty
Ingmar Weber
Ingmar Weber is an Alexander Humboldt Professor for AI, and holds the chair for Societal Computing at Saarland University. His research looks at how non-traditional data sources, such as social media and satellite images, can be used to study societal phenomena, and to strengthen social development. Topics of interest include monitoring migration and mobility, tracking digital gender gaps, and understanding democratic processes.
Carolina Coimbra Vieira
Carolina Coimbra Vieira is a PhD Student in Computer Science at Universität des Saarlandes (UdS) also affiliated to the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPIDR) and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS). She received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Science from Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil. Carolina’s research focuses on interdisciplinary topics at the intersection of computer science and the use of digital trace data to study culture, migration, and algorithmically-mediated user engagement on social media platforms.
Brahmani Nutakki
Brahmani Nutakki is a PhD Student in Computer Science at Universität des Saarlandes (UdS). She received her Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science from University of Hyderabad in India. Her research focuses on understanding the dynamics of online communities and the society at large, mainly on Politics, Hate Speech and Misinformation.
Jianlong Zhu
Jianlong Zhu is a PhD Student in Computer Science at Saarland University. He holds an MSc in Social Data Science from the University of Oxford and a BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College. His current research focus is on the application of large language models in enhancing critical thinking and decision-making processes, with a particular interest in civic education.Speakers
Abhisek Dash (Max Planck Institute for Software Systems)
Abhisek Dash is a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Krishna P. Gummadi's Networked Systems Research Group at MPI-SWS, Saarbruecken. His broad area of research revolves around different aspects of computational social science which includes (, but is not limited to) algorithm auditing, multi-modal analyses of social media data, understanding decentralized social media platforms, compliance of platforms with data protection regulations, fairness in digital marketplaces.
Alex Hartland (Saarland University)
Dr. Alex Hartland is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Political Science with a focus on European Integration and International Relations at Saarland University. He completed his PhD at the University of Manchester, where he analysed the impact of lobbying and public opinion on asylum policy in Germany and the UK. Previously, he studied Intercultural Conflict Management at the Alice Salomon Hochschule in Berlin and Psychology at the University of Warwick. His work focuses on political trust, interest groups and comparative European politics. He uses survey data, quantitative text analysis, experimental research designs and qualitative methods to investigate the role of institutions, lobbying and public opinion in politics and political behaviour.
Bernie Hogan (University of Oxford)
Bernie Hogan (PhD Toronto, 2009) is a Associate Professor, Senior Research Fellow at the OII and Research Associate at the Department of Sociology. With training in sociology and computer science, Hogan focuses on how social networks and social media can be designed to empower people to build stronger relationships and stronger communities.
Daniela Braun (Saarland University)
Prof. Dr Daniela Braun has been Professor of Political Science with a focus on European Integration and International Relations since 2022. Prior to that, she taught and conducted research at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute for Political Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich since 2010. In her research, she focuses on topics from the field of EU politics. European elections, European parties and the European party system as well as citizens and voters and their attitudes and behaviour in the European multi-level system are among her core topics. Her academic teaching focuses on the political system of the European Union, the current challenges of the multi-level system of the European Union and political sociology. Daniela Braun's research has been published in the following political science journals, among others: European Journal of Political Research, European Union Politics, German Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal for European Integration, Journal of European Public Policy, Party Politics, West European Politics, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft and Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen. In addition, she has funded and carried out various research projects (BMBF; DFG; Horizon 2020; Horizon Europe) on Europe-related topics.
Emilio Zagheni (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research)
Emilio Zagheni is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) and affiliate faculty of the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he served as Training Director of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. He received his Ph.D. in Demography (2010) and M.A. in Statistics (2008) from U.C. Berkeley. Zagheni is currently President of the European Association for Population Studies (EAPS). Previously he chaired the Digital Demography Panel of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (2015-2022), playing a key role in favoring innovation in population research through collaboration and exchange between demographers, statisticians and computational scientists.
Georg Wenzelburger (Saarland University)
Georg Wenzelburger is a Professor of Comparative European Politics at Saarland University and its Cluster of European Research (CEUS). His research interests involve the comparative analysis of public policies with a recent focus on law-and-order policies (e.g. “The Partisan Politics of Law and Order”, OUP 2020), the welfare state, party politics and the politics of the digital transformation.
Giuseppe Carteny (Saarland University)
Dr. Giuseppe Carteny is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Political Science with a focus on European Integration and International Relations at Saarland University. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim for the ProConEU project, a research project investigating the growing gap between supporters and opponents of European integration in relation to party politics, civic politics and social media communication, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). In July 2021, he completed his PhD in Political Science at the Network for the Advancement of Social and Political Studies (NASP) at the University of Milan with a dissertation dedicated to the individual and contextual antecedents of individual trust in public institutions in the East Asian region. His work focuses the study of political attitudes, electoral behaviour, party politics, and comparative politics in Europe and East Asia, with a particular focus on institutional confidence, value and ideological orientations, Euroscepticism, far-right party agency, cleavage politics, and related topics. His methodological interests include classical quantitative methods for the social sciences, quantitative text analysis methods and survey methodology.
Kevin Baum (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence)
Kevin Baum is a computer scientist and philosopher researching interdisciplinary topics in ethical and safe AI. He leads the Responsible AI and Machine Ethics (RAIME) research group at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and is part of the Center for European Research in Trusted AI (CERTAIN), where he explores ethical frameworks and practical methods for trustworthy, aligned AI systems. Kevin frequently lectures and speaks internationally on AI ethics, notably through the award-winning course Ethics for Nerds.
Rosa M. Navarrete (Saarland University)
Since December 2022, Dr. Rosa M. Navarrete has been working as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Chair of Political Science with a focus on European Integration and International Relations in the Department of European Social Research at Saarland University. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at MZES (University of Mannheim), a research associate at the Chair of Comparative Government at the University of Mannheim, a research associate for the project Democratic dissatisfaction in Southern Europe: the political consequences of the crisis at the University of York and a research associate at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She studied History (B.A. + M.A.) at the Complutense University of Madrid and completed her M.A. in Democracy and Government at the Autonomous University of Madrid. In 2019, she finished her PhD in Political Science at the University of Mannheim. In her dissertation, she studied the effect of left-right orientations on political behaviour. Her research interests include text-as-data methods, comparative politics, European politics, political behaviour and the impact of digitalisation on political attitudes. Her work has appeared in Electoral Studies, Party Politics, JEPOP, Comparative European Politics, European Politics and Society and Frontiers in Political Science.