Organizing team

The Computational Methods Working Group was founded by researchers at the Department of Communication and Media Research, the Department of Political Science and the fög – Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society/University of Zurich in January 2020.

The group and its events are supported by a grant of the Graduate School at the University of Zurich as well as the Digital Society Initiative.

Ivo Bantel is a PhD Student at the Department of Political Science (University of Zurich). His research focusses on polarization, political conflict, and computational social science methods.

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Dr. Theresa Gessler ist a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science (University of Zurich). Her research focuses on conflicts around democracy, immigration and patterns of party competition.

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Christina's research has the overarching goal of capturing daily life indicators of mental and physical health from novel data sources, including free text and activity sensor data. To this end, she applies a range of methods, including machine learning and natural language processing methods. She currently holds a postdoctoral position at the UZH Digital & Mobile Health Group (Prof. Viktor von Wyl). Link to profile

Valerie Hase is a research assistant/PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). Her research interests include conflict and crises communication, terrorism, and text-as-data methods.

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Lara Kobilke is a research assistant/PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). Her research focuses on political cross-cutting exposure, political communication and social media.

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Markos Mpadanes is a research assistant/PhD candidate at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). His research focuses on strategic communication, media and communication management, CxO positioning and thought leadership on social and professional networks, sustainability, social network analysis, and text-as-data methods. Link to profile

Nico Pfiffner is a research assistant/PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). His research interests include media use and effects, computational social science, and network analysis.

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Michael Reiss is a research assistant/PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). His research interests include news consumption and algorithmic selection in everyday life. Link to profile

Jennifer Victoria Scurrell is a PhD student at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on opinion dynamics, the influence of AI agents in online social networks, and visual political communication using experimental and computational social science methods. Link to profile

Ronja Sczepanski is a PhD student in the European Politics Research Group at ETH Zurich. Her research focusses on identity change, social group cues and stereotypes.

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Dario Siegen is a research assistant/PhD student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). His research interests include political communication, environmental policy and computational social science. Link to profile

Anna Staender is a research assistant/PhD Student at the Department of Communication and Media Research (University of Zurich). Her research focuses on online disinformation, political communication, and social media.

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Daniel Vogler is a research associate at the Department of Communication and Media Research and head of research at fög – Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society/University of Zurich. His research interests include reputation research, higher education institutions, CSR, crisis communication, and social media. Link to profile