Hello. I am a PhD candidate in University of Michigan's Political Science department, currently working on my dissertation on Social Media and Polarization.
A long road in education advocacy, arts education and citizen engagement - paired with life-long obsessions with democracy and human behavior - led me to want to research and answer the question "Are humans designed for democracy? " and to examine how we can tweak institutions to work with human nature (as opposed to against human nature) to maximize positive democratic outcomes. There are countless ways to attack those questions. For my work, the slice I carve out is to study how social media users share information online and to what extent social media contributes to polarization.
A long road in education advocacy, arts education and citizen engagement - paired with life-long obsessions with democracy and human behavior - led me to want to research and answer the question "Are humans designed for democracy? " and to examine how we can tweak institutions to work with human nature (as opposed to against human nature) to maximize positive democratic outcomes. There are countless ways to attack those questions. For my work, the slice I carve out is to study how social media users share information online and to what extent social media contributes to polarization.