I am an Assistant Professor at the Technology, Policy, and Management (TPM) faculty at TU Delft and an Associated Researcher with the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPI-INF).

Research

Overall, my research focuses on applying machine learning and data-driven quantitative analysis to understand emerging phenomena on the Web such as the spread of false information and hateful rhetoric. I am also interested in understanding algorithmic recommendations on social media platforms. My research has been published at top-tier conferences such as WWW, ICWSM, ACM CCS, and IEEE S&P. My co-authors and I have received a distinguished paper award at ACM IMC 2018, best paper honorable mention awards at ICWSM 2020/2024/2026, CSCW 2021, and ACM CHI 2026, and a best paper honorable mention at ACM CCS 2022. I am also the recipient of the 2026 ICWSM Adamic-Glance Distinguished Early Career Award, which recognizes a researcher who has distinguished themselves through creativity and rigor in addressing computational social science research topics of major societal impact.

News

Throughout the academic journey, there are a lot of ups and downs, with a large number of rejections. To reflect a better picture of my academic journey and help early stage researchers to understand that rejection is normal, this news section contains both positive and negative news (like paper rejections, grant rejections, etc.)

  • May 2026: Really happy to share that I have received the 2026 ICWSM Adamic-Glance Distinguished Early Career Award! 🎉 This annual award recognizes a researcher who has distinguished themselves through creativity and rigor in addressing computational social science research topics of major societal impact. This one is especially meaningful as ICWSM has always been my favorite conference, so being recognized by this community makes it extra special. This is a tremendous honor for me and my collaborators!
  • May 2026: Our paper entitled “The Great Data Standoff: Researchers vs. Platforms Under the Digital Services Act” received an Honorable Mention Award at ICWSM 2026. Congratulations to all authors and especially, Catalina and Thales for leading the effort!
  • March 2026: Our paper entitled “Gold Standard or Gold-Plated? Human Practices of Triple Verification in CSAM Takedown” received an Honorable Mention Award at ACM CHI 2026. Huge congrats to the first author, Melissa (MSc student)! If you are attending CHI and interested on the topic, make sure to chat with her! :)
  • February 2026: What a day! Four rejects in single day! Two papers rejected from ACM WebSci, one from ACM CCS, and ERC Starting Grant round 1 reject this year :(
  • January 2026: Our paper entitled “Gold Standard or Gold-Plated? Human Practices of Triple Verification in CSAM Takedown” has been accepted at ACM CHI 2026. Congrats to Melissa (MSc student) for the amazing work!
  • January 2026: Three papers accepted at The Web Conference 2026: 1) Does Ad-Free Mean Less Data Collection? An Empirical Study of Platform Data Practices and User Expectations; 2) Bowling with ChatGPT: On the Evolving User Interactions with Conversational AI Systems and 3) The Algorithmic Self-Portrait: Deconstructing Memory in ChatGPT. Congratulations to Sepehr, Keerthana, Qinwuan, and Elisabeth for leading the efforts! See you in Dubai! :)
  • January 2026: One paper rejected from the Web Conference 2026.
  • November 2025: Our paper entitled “The Great Data Standoff: Researchers vs. Platforms Under the Digital Services Act” has been accepted at ICWSM 2026! Congratulations to Catalina and Thales for leading the effort!
  • October 2025: One paper desk rejected from the Web Conference 2026. Apparently, ChatGPT is completely unrelated to the Web. Bruh….
  • September 2025: Our paper entitled “Setting the Course, but Forgetting to Steer: Analyzing Compliance with GDPR’s Right of Access to Data by Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube” has been accepted at IEEE S&P 2026! Congratulations to Keerthana and Abhishek for leading the effort!
  • August 2025: Our paper entitled “Breaking Agents: Compromising Autonomous LLM Agents Through Malfunction Amplification” has been accepted at EMNLP 2025! Congratulations to Boyang for leading the effort!
  • August 2025: Assisted desk reject for CSCW submission.
  • July 2025: Painful reject for ERC Starting Grant. We are going to get them next year! (2/10 in funding proposals)
  • June 2025: Our paper entitled “Hate in Plain Sight: On the Risks of Moderating AI-Generated Hateful Illusions” has been accepted at ICCV 2025! Congratulations to Yiting for leading the effort!
  • April 2024: Four papers rejected by Usenix Security 2025.
  • April 2024: One paper rejected by FAccT 2025.
  • January 2025: Two papers accepted by AAAI ICWSM 2025! Congrats to Aoyu and Daniel for leading the works! See you in Copenhagen! :)
  • February 2025: One paper rejected by ACM CSCW!
  • January 2025: Two papers accepted by Usenix Security 2025! Congrats to Xinyue and Yihan!