Learning from Error

An old-school blog by Adarsh Mathew

About: Adarsh Mathew

Last Modified at — Mar 6, 2021

(Hire me!)

Hi! I’m currently a graduate researcher for Prof. James Evans at the University of Chicago’s Knowledge Lab. I was also in the Masters in Computational Social Science program at the Social Sciences Division at UChicago.

Research Interests

My Masters thesis explores the narrative and dissemination network of claims in the QAnon universe using a computational framework. I hope to describe and investigate how these claims propagate in user networks on Reddit & Twitter, what counts as ‘knowledge’ in these communities, and how they adapt in a decentralized fashion in response to platform incentives. I use a combination of network science and natural language processing methods to model both content and user interactions on platforms.

My favourite scholars who work at the intersection of science/technology studies and computational disinformation range from Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Dr. Kate Starbird, Dr. Kevin Zollman, and Renee DiResta. This work ties into my larger curiosity about Network Epistemology and examining how its principles and models can be used to craft skeptical yet grounded epistemic communities on the internet.

Selected Projects & Writing