Matthew R. DeVerna

I'm a computational social scientist studying the societal impacts of artificial intelligence within the information ecosystem, with the goal of improving how people encounter, interpret, and act on digital information. I take a multi-level approach, pairing system-level evaluations of AI platforms with individual-level experiments and observational analyses of digital trace data. I apply this approach across two connected tracks: evaluating the quality of AI-generated information on topics of societal importance, such as news, politics, and health; and understanding how AI and online platforms shape people's beliefs and decisions. Ultimately, my work aims to guide society's adoption of AI so that its capabilities make our digital spaces more trustworthy and resilient.

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford's Tech Impact and Policy Center, working with Dr. Jeffrey Hancock in the Social Media Lab. I have a PhD in Informatics from Indiana University, where I was advised by 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, AI, and Politics and was advised by Dr. John Jost.