Matthew R. DeVerna

I'm a computational social scientist studying how an increasingly AI-mediated information ecosystem, from search engines and chatbots to social media, is reshaping the way people find information and form beliefs. My research combines large-scale audits of these systems with experiments and observational data analysis, focusing on the quality and spread of information in high-stakes domains such as news, politics, and public health. As these tools become the default gateway to information, this work aims to inform how researchers, platforms, and policymakers hold them accountable.

I am currently a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Tech Impact and Policy Center (formerly the Cyber Policy Center), working with Dr. Jeffrey Hancock in the Social Media Lab. I have a PhD in Informatics from Indiana University, where I worked with Dr. Filippo Menczer at the Observatory on Social Media. Before that, I earned an MA in Psychology from New York University, where I collaborated with Dr. Josh Tucker at the Center for Social Media and Politics and was advised by Dr. John Jost.