I’m the founding Executive Director of the NYU Center for Social Media & Politics, a computational research institute studying the ever-evolving relationship between the digital information environment and society. I’m also a Research Associate at the Center on Technology Policy, a practitioner-oriented institute aimed at building actionable policy frameworks and analysis. Here’s a snapshot of my public-facing work.
More specifically, I spend time across five areas:
I lead technical research. I use experimental and computational methods to study the diffusion of online information, the impact this information has on the public, and what interventions might make the digital information environment healthier. My earlier work mainly focused on social media & content moderation; recently, I’m focused on genAI and search engines. Generally, my work is animated by questions that have the potential for broader impact. My research has been published in Nature, PNAS Nexus, the Journal of Experimental Political Science, ICWSM, and the Journal of Online Trust & Safety, among other journals.
I translate technical research. I regularly engage policymakers, civil society, media, and tech companies — translating our technical research into actionable insights. To this end, I speak regularly in public & private fora and have been quoted in leading international outlets across print, radio, and television. My writing has also been published in Slate, The Washington Post, Barron’s, Brookings, and Lawfare, among many other outlets. My role with the Center on Technology Policy builds on and expands this work, allowing me to engage more directly on tech policy analysis and development, such as the recent State of State Tech Policy white paper.
I manage teams. Since starting the center, we’ve made more than 40 hires across various functions — research, engineering, comms, and operations. I’ve built and led cross-functional teams working on 50+ research projects, developing large data collection infrastructure (~250TB) and custom tooling, and engaging in dozens of partnerships with external organizations.
I develop partnerships. I support the development of new and strengthen existing partnerships across academia, policy, and tech. Highlights include leading research partnerships with tech companies and civil society organizations, managing two NSF-funded multi-stakeholder conference series, and organizing field-building events for multiple foundations.
I build organizations. I've helped launch & run a 20-person, multi-million dollar research center — leading the ground-up development of our operations, fundraising, finance, and people management functions. We’ve raised 8-figures to date, with grants from leading private foundations, corporations, and public agencies. This work of building organizational capacity relied on my experiences, before coming to academia, in operations roles across both start-ups and non-profits.
Outside of NYU, I consult for an international NGO working on information integrity, am on the Research Advisory Council of the Siegel Family Endowment, and was on the advisory board of the start-up NewsGuard.
When I’m not working or consulting, I play a lot of basketball (was a good high school & mediocre Division I player), read a lot of fiction (which I sometimes write), and hang out with my dog.
