Julia Barnett

PhD Student at Northwestern University

Julia Barnett is a PhD student in Technology and Social Behavior, a dual PhD program in computer science and communications at Northwestern University. Her research interests lie in algorithmic ethics and transparency, ethical AI, NLP applications in social contexts, and the intersection of machine learning and music. Before starting her PhD, she received a Masters in Data Science at the Barcelona School of Economics and worked at the Washington Post as an analyst for a couple of years.

Alicia Boyd

Researcher at DePaul University

Dr Alicia Boyd is a social-technical researcher guided by wisdom, patience, and thoughtfulness. Her interdisciplinary background is rooted in medicine, allowing her to approach challenges from a humanistic and reflexive approach. She has a Master's degree in both Mathematics and Higher Education from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis. Throughout her career, she has worked in numerous profit and non-profit sectors. In 2021, she received her PhD in Computer Science from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Her dissertation and post-graduation work has pioneered a new direction for research on the `me too' movement. Alicia's innovative technical and theoretical research led to the creation of Quantitative Intersectional Data (QUINTA), which is a methodological framework that investigates, critiques, and examines how to significantly improve the design, deployment, and operation of real-world AI systems – contributing to a more just, inclusive, and legitimate vision for AI.

Kelly Finke

PhD Candidate at Princeton University

Kelly Finke is a second-year Ecology and Evolutionary Biology PhD student in the Tarnita Lab at Princeton University. Her research focuses on developing models of contemporary cultural evolution grounded in realistic representations of human biases. Currently, Kelly is investigating the role of habit formation and cognitive dissonance in facilitating or hindering collective social change through analytical and agent-based models. As a case study, she will be investigating the role of small, habitual actions in influencing sustainable attitudes and collective action among undergraduate students. Kelly’s undergraduate training in Cognitive Science, Computational Biology, and Peace and Conflict studies influences her cross-disciplinary approaches to the social, natural, and computational sciences.

Twitter: @KellyAFinke

Rafiazka Millanida Hilman

PhD Candidate at Central European University

Rafiazka Hilman’s work stands on two levels of playing fields, namely social science and computational social science, with network and data science as an intermediary in between. Her formal training at both bachelor's and master's level in Economics, Politics, and International Relations lay an integrated theoretical foundation for further scientific investigations related to dynamics of individuals, dynamics of social interactions, and collective social dynamics. Her current work focuses on socioeconomic segregation in urban mobilities based on high-dimensional spatiotemporal data.

Blog: What's Up at DNDS

Jisha Mariyam John

Research scholar at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kottayam

Jisha Mariyam John's primary research interest is in network science. She is specifically interested in the study of vulnerability in complex networks. In support of her research, she has received a doctoral fellowship (research scholar) from IIT Palakkad Technology IHub Foundation (IPTIF).

Linkedin ID: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jisha-mariyam-john-14575294/

Aleks Kaye

PhD Candidate at University College London

Aleks Kaye is a historian of nineteenth-century migration interested in studying the part migrants play in communication of knowledge across national and ethnic divides. She is writing a thesis at UCL entitled ‘Mapping Polish Knowledge Networks in Nineteenth-century Latin America, 1830-1890’. The project investigates the role of Polish migrants in the creation, circulation and reception of scientific knowledge in Latin America and among Polish communities in partitioned Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, through examination of books, maps and press articles authored by the migrants, and the application of Social Network Analysis methods to historical research.

Aleks Kaye is a Freer Prize Fellow. Videos of her research presentations are available from the For videos of her presentations, check out and has previously given recorded talks at the History of Science and the 'Big Picture' – Global History and Culture Centre Annual Conference (June 2022) and the Digital History Seminar series, Institute of Historical Research (IHR) (December 2019).

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xM0ZHaoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Twitter: @Aleks_Kaye

Yuliia Kazmina

PhD Candidate at University of Amsterdam

Yuliia Kazmina is a PhD Candidate at the POPNET project where she focuses on the issues of socio-economic segregation in population-scale social networks. She obtained a master’s degree in Economic Policy in Global Markets from the Central European University, Hungary and currently, and is affiliated with the Political Science Department at the University of Amsterdam. Yuliia’s research interests concern the domain of computational social science and data-driven policymaking with a focus on the network science approach. Previously Yuliia has been a data scientist at the think tank researching and advocating good governance and her policy projects focused on issues of transparency, corruption, and collusion in public funds as well as risks of organized crime.

Project’s website https://www.popnet.io/

Twitter: @yuliia_kazmina

Shriya V. Nagpal

PhD Candidate at Cornell University

Shriya V. Nagpal is a PhD candidate in Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. Her work utilizes tools from graph theory, linear algebra, and optimization to study networks that arise from varied disciplines, ranging from electrical engineering to cancer biology. Outside of research, Shriya is passionate about the inclusion of women in mathematics and STEM fields at large. To this end, she has consistently held leadership roles in the Association for Women in Mathematics at both her undergraduate and graduate institutions.

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Eut3bFQAAAAJ&hl=en

Maria E. Pope

PhD Candidate at Indiana University

Maria Pope is a PhD student in Neuroscience and Complex Networks and Systems. She received a B.S. in Neuroscience and the Program of Liberal Studies from the University of Notre Dame. She started a PhD at Indiana University in 2020 under Olaf Sporns. She is currently fascinated by the relationship between brain network structure and function, and her work uses a combination of dynamical modelling and information theory to investigate these questions. When not at her desk in the lab, you can find her reading, doing pottery, or climbing rocks.

Alyssa Smith

PhD Candidate at the Northeastern University

Alyssa Smith is about to start her 2nd year of Northeastern’s Network Science PhD program. She graduated from MIT in 2017 with a degree in Humanities and Engineering with Computer Science and Comparative Media Studies, then spent 4 years working as a data engineer and data scientist. Currently, she’s interested in network formation and narrative spread on Twitter, as well as making data engineering pipelines for academic data collection. She is co-advised by Prof. David Lazer and Prof. Brooke Foucault Welles. In her spare time, she enjoys powerlifting (and holds a RI state squat record), embroidery, knitting, and spending time with her dog.

Website: lentil-soup.github.io

Twitter: @cetacean_needed

Katie Spoon

PhD Candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder

Katie Spoon is a PhD student in Computer Science at University of Colorado Boulder and a Master’s student in Education Policy. Her research focuses on quantifying social inequalities, particularly by gender, race and socioeconomic status, in access to and retention within highly-educated jobs, such as those in academia, in the U.S.

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NnZePbQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Twitter: @thekatiespoon

Paris Wicker

PhD Candidate at University of Wisconsin-Madison

Paris Wicker is a 4th Ph.D. candidate in the department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis with a doctoral minor in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Using mixed and multi methods, Paris explores sociological and equity-based perspectives on the access, success, and well-being of Black and Indigenous students, staff, and faculty in higher education, from pre-college to post-tenured. Paris was recently awarded the prestigious Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship to support her dissertation project using social network analysis to explore the personal well-being networks of Black and Indigenous college students before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Twitter: @ScholarParis

Paper: A Critical Policy Review of Well-Being and Equity Policy at Historically Black, Tribal, and Predominately White Colleges and Universities