projects

current and past research projects and grants

These projects grow from a shared interest in how technologies shape collective life. They are grouped by period, with grant information included as context and collaborators named where useful.

Current Projects

Improving Social Media with Large Language Models (NWO VIDI)

  • Period: 2025-2030
  • Funding: €850,000
  • Role: PI
  • Focus: Designing and testing AI-based interventions for healthier online public discourse and prosocial outcomes on social media platforms.
  • PhD students:
    • Erfan Monazzah (2025-): Improving social media through AI (funded by VIDI).
    • Michelle Schimmel (2025-): Language models, social media, and affective polarization (funded by VIDI).

DemDialogueAI: A Cross-National Study to Promote Democratic Dialogue on Social Media Using Generative AI (Trans-Atlantic Platform)

  • Period: 2024-2027
  • Funding: €500,000
  • Role: Co-PI
  • Focus: Cross-national collaboration on generative social simulation and democratic dialogue interventions.
  • Core collaborators: Chris Bail (Duke), Chris Barrie (NYU), Aniko Hannak (UZH).

False Words, Failing Democracies? A Global Comparative Analysis of Institutional Vulnerability to Political Misinformation (Swedish Research Council, VR)

  • Period: 2026-2029
  • Funding: €472,000
  • Role: Co-PI
  • Focus: Global comparative analysis of misinformation in political communication and institutional vulnerability.
  • Core collaborators: Anton Törnberg, Juliana Chueri.

Past Projects

Seeing the City Through Digital Platforms (NWO VENI, VI.Veni.201S.006)

  • Period: 2021-2025
  • Funding: €250,000
  • Role: PI
  • Focus: How digital platforms transform cities, urban conflict, and platform-mediated spatial dynamics.

ODYCCEUS (EU Horizon 2020, Grant No. 732942)

  • Period: 2017-2021
  • Funding: €6,000,000 (project total)
  • Role: Co-authored two work packages; funded postdoctoral and PhD research trajectory.
  • Focus: Computational approaches to political conflict and social media dynamics.
  • PhD students:
    • Anna Keuchenius (2018-2025): Computational social science and collective meaning-making (funded by ODYCCEUS).
    • Livia van Vliet (2018-2023): Twitter politics across 26 countries (funded by ODYCCEUS).