Doctoral Students
Daniel Akselrad
daniel.akselrad@stanford.edu
CV
Akselrad uses historical and ethnographic methods to examine how media affect the sensemaking of individuals inside expansive bureaucratic institutions, information systems, and military infrastructures.
Ruth Appel
Appel combines insights and methods from psychology, political science and computer science to develop and evaluate evidence-based interventions to promote the social good. She is particularly passionate about preventing the spread of misinformation, promoting wellbeing and mental health, and addressing ethical challenges related to new technologies.
Rachel Bergmann
Bergmann uses interpretive and archival methods to deeply and critically contextualize contemporary information technologies. Her research interests include histories of computing, feminist science and technology studies, and the cultural politics of AI and algorithmic systems.
Caitlin Burke
Burke is interested in user experience design, design ethics, and human-computer interaction.
Catherine Chen
tche101@stanford.edu
CV
catherinechenty.com
Chen's research interests revolve around understanding the antecedents, structure, and consequences of political attitudes among Americans. Specifically, her work focuses on examining people’s attitudes toward science, climate change, and vaccines. Chen is currently on the academic job market, seeking an assistant professor position set to commence in the fall of 2024.
Yikun Chi
Chi is interested in leveraging media consumption and mobile sensing data and deep learning for the detection and prediction of mental well-being related issues.
Ross Dahlke
Dahlke researches the connection between online and offline civic life, particularly participation in political collective action such as social media use and political donations.
Matthew DeButts
Matt is interested in how institutions get people to believe things, especially in China and the United States (media, politics, beliefs).
Cid Decatur
Decatur focuses on the cognitive impacts of social media, social networks, language, and jargon online.
Cyan DeVeaux
DeVeaux is interested in augmented and virtual reality, human-computer interaction, and human-centered design.
Elizabeth Fetterolf
Fetterolf is interested in how care work technologies shape and are shaped by the ongoing crisis of care in the US, particularly as this relates to workplace and intimate surveillance.
Thay Graciano
Graciano is interested in reducing political polarization and ensuring policy-making is guided by the wishes of common citizens through the implementation of Deliberative Democracy methods.
Tomás Guarna
Guarna is interested in the new meanings of citizenship, trust, and legitimacy in the digital public sphere.
Eugy Han
Han is interested in understanding how virtual reality environments and the embodiment of digital identities transform cognitive processes.
Zhenchao Hu
Zhenchao is interested in (intensive) longitudinal methods, social media uses and effects, interpersonal relationships, children and adolescents' identity development, sexuality, and well-being.
Young Jee Kim
Kim studies democratic processes for risk prevention in society through deliberative practices.
Angela Lee
Lee is interested in understanding the impact of media and technology on users’ health and well-being by studying psychological processes such as mindsets, particularly in the context of adolescent and parent-child relationships.
Rebecca Lewis
Becca Lewis researches ideological and social histories of Silicon Valley and the internet.
Marijn Mado
Mado studies media literacy education. She uses ethnographic methods to explore the practices and epistemological assumptions that underlie the design and teaching of media literacy programs.
Natalie Neufeld
Neufeld is interested in political polarization, party loyalty, and persuasion techniques that lead to lasting attitude change.
Michelle Ng
Ng is interested in how media can be leveraged by community-based organizations to advocate for more equitable natural resource management.
Rinseo Park
Park is interested in understanding how individual decision-making diverges from policy actors’ (e.g., political elites or scientific experts) views and the underlying cognitive processes.
Katherine Roehrick
Roehrick uses computational and linguistic analyses to study human-computer interaction and digital media. She is a Stanford Graduate Fellow.
Reagan Ross
Reagan is interested in the intersections of race, gender, and new media and technology. She is also interested in understanding how new technology might be used to disrupt anti-Black racism.
Monique Santoso
Santoso is interested in the social, psychological, and behavioral implications of virtual reality, particularly in the context of climate and sustainability.
Serena Soh
Soh is interested in understanding how identity development unfolds in the digital context, particularly in terms of how digital interventions can be designed to promote positive identity development.
Sumer Vaid
Vaid’s research explores how digital media technologies can be used to study and alter psychological processes and outcomes. He is especially interested in a person-specific, computational and idiographic approach that examines the extent to which individual differ from each other in their response to different kinds of media.
Noah Vinoya
Vinoya is interested in how digital media can be leveraged as a tool to understand human behavior in a more natural context. Particularly, media habits can be captured to help unveil aspects of personality expression, well-being, and life outcomes.
Morgan Weiland
mweiland@stanford.edu
CV
morganweiland.com
Morgan N. Weiland is the Executive Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, where she received her JD in 2015. She is in the process of completing the first joint degree program between SLS and Stanford’s Communication Department, where she is a PhD candidate. Her dissertation investigates the structural role of speech platforms like Facebook and Twitter in the public sphere to understand what responsibilities these companies have to the public, and what policies ought to be enacted to ensure both free expression and accountability.
Weiland was a Lecturer in Law at SLS during the 2017-18 academic year, when she developed and taught a new course about platforms, law, and ethics with Professor Barbara van Schewick. She is also a Graduate Fellow at SLS’s Center for Internet & Society. She clerked for the Honorable M. Margaret McKeown on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals during the 2018-19 term. She is admitted to the California Bar.