Resume

Yasmin Al-Douri is a PhD student at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology. Her research focus lies on the impact of social media on society and the regulation of emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence. 
Yasmin holds a Bachelors in Political Sciences and Psychology from the University of Heidelberg and a Masters Degree in Politics & Technology from the Technical University Munich and has studied at Central Michigan University, USA as well as Carleton University, Canada.

Previous to her PhD studies she has gained research experience as a conflict researcher and Head of the MENA working Group at the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, worked for different Tech companies as well as Public Sector institutions and has been involved in several Responsible Tech projects and organisations.

Resume

Michael Benzinger is a PhD student at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology. His research focuses on organizational network analysis in transactions and transformations of organizations, within the context of mergers and acquisitions. In particular, his attention lies on communication aspects, collaboration and leadership as well as organizational development.

His academic experience lies in business and management since he has received a degree in Business Administration (B.Sc.), International Business (B.A.), and Management (M.A.) including international study exchanges in Great Britain and Canada.

Michael has professional experience in the corporate environment and a profound track record in management consulting. Besides his research he is currently working as a Senior Manager in a large service firm, in the field of People, Organization, and Change-Management.

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Sophie is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Computational Social Science with a background in political science and politics and technology. Her research interests are the political development and shifts of the far right in Europe and the political implications of Artificial Intelligence and its regulation.

Resume

Lena Maier is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Computational Social Science at the School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University Munich. Her research is mainly focused on social identity and political self-representation in the context of social media.

Lena received her Bachelor’s degree (B.Sc.) as well as her Master’s degree (M.Sc.) at the Universities of Stuttgart and Hohenheim. She has professional experience in the corporate environment and top-management consulting where she among other things focused on digital transformations and digital talent.

Resume

Daniel is a PhD candidate at the professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data. He has a background in Mathematics, Computer Science and Philosophy. His main areas of interest are social networks, opinion dynamics, and the effects of digitalization on democracy and and public discourse with a focus on natural language capabilities of artificial intelligence.

Resume

Angelina is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Computational Social Science with a background in Sociology and Data Science. Her research interests lie in development of new methods for social science using Machine Learning and Large Language Models, social networks analysis and machine behavior studies. 

Resume

Anahit Sargsyan is a PhD student at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data of the TUM School of Governance at the Technical University of Munich. She earned her Master of Engineering from American University of Armenia in 2017, and Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature from Yerevan State University in 2014. From 2017-2018 she was with the Department of Computing and Information Science at Masdar Institute (currently Khalifa University) as a visiting scholar.  During the period between 2018-2022 Anahit was with the Social Science department at New York University Abu Dhabi as a Teaching Instructor while also actively involved in a number of research projects focusing on human-bot interaction, misinformation analysis and spatio-temporal effect of COVID-19 on attitude and behavioral changes across different countries. Anahit’s research lies at the intersection of Computational Social Science, Data Science and AI. 

Selected Publications

Reichelt, Malte, Kinga Makovi, and Anahit Sargsyan. "The impact of COVID-19 on gender inequality in the labor market and gender-role attitudes." European Societies 23.sup1 (2021): S228-S245.

Abascal, Maria, Kinga Makovi, and Anahit Sargsyan. "Unequal treatment toward copartisans versus non-copartisans is reduced when partisanship can be falsified." PloS one 16.1 (2021): e0244651.

Sargsyan, Anahit, et al. "Explainable AI as a social microscope: A case study on academic performance." International Conference on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science. Springer, Cham, 2020.

Salganik, Matthew J., et al. "Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117.15 (2020): 8398-8403.

Resume

Janine is a PhD Candidate at the Chair of Computational Social Science at the Technical University of Munich. Her research is dedicated to social movements, collective identity, subcultures, and stigmatization processes. She is interested in the analysis of social networks, influencing factors on social cohesion and information diffusion, and the process of building and labeling of (collective) identities. In this context, she also included perspectives from activists or forensic patients to give them a voice in research by employing qualitative methods. Her background is in Social Sciences and Criminology, which she studied at the University of Augsburg, the University of Regensburg, and the Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.

Resume

Franz Waltenberger is a PhD student at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data at the TUM School of Governance at the Technical University of Munich. He received his Bachelor’s degree in “Management & Technology” 2017 at the TUM and his Master’s degree in “Politics. Economics. Philosophy” 2020 at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. He is researching the effects of comment section intervention mechanisms for increased discourse quality in online social networks.

Besides his research at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and Big Data, Franz is a member of the management team at the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), a joint institution of both TUM and LMU Munich.

Resume

Martin Wessel is a PhD student at the Professorship of Computational Social Science and at the TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology in Munich. He holds a Bachelor's in Philosophy & Economics (University of Bayreuth, 2020) and a Master's in Social and Economic Data Science (University of Konstanz, 2023). His research focuses on using language models to detect media bias, evaluating and improving their robustness, and assessing their impact on media consumption.

Besides his research, Martin is a member of the management team at the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), a joint institution of both TUM and LMU Munich.