KARSTEN DONNAY
Assistant Professor of Political Behavior and Digital Media
Department of Political Science &
Digital Society Initiative
University of Zurich
8050 Zurich, Switzerland
Employment
Assistant Professor of Political Behavior and Digital Media, Department of Political Science & Digital Society Initiative, University of Zurich, since 2020
Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, 2016-2020
Postdoctoral Researcher, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), University of Maryland, 2015-2016
Postdoctoral Researcher and Visiting Lecturer, Department of International Relations & Political Science, Graduate Institute Geneva, 2014-2016
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH Zürich, Professorship of Computational Social Science, 2014-2015
Education
ETH Zürich
Dr. sc., Department of Humanities, Social and Political Science, 2010-2014
Dissertation: “Disaggregating Civil Conflict”
Committee: Dirk Helbing, Ravi Bhavnani, Scott E. Page
TU München
Dipl. Phys., Department of Physics, 2008-2009
Major fields: Theoretical Physics, Complex Systems
McGill University
Graduate studies, Department of Physics, 2007-2008
Major fields: Theoretical Physics, Complex Systems
TU München
Undergraduate studies, Department of Physics and Mathematics, 2004-2007
Major fields: Physics, Mathematics
Research Interests
Political communication and behavior:
Media bias and its influence on collective decision making
Automated hate speech detection and counter speech strategies
Impact of algorithmic decision-making on social processes
Social influence through traditional and online media
Computational social science:
Statistical and experimental analysis on digital media
Machine/deep learning and automated text classification
Large-scale data processing and analysis
Causal inference in (geo-referenced) micro-level data
(Agent-based) Computational modeling
Academic Honors and Fellowships
2019-2021 Fellowship of the Academy of Sciences of Baden Württemberg for outstanding junior researchers (WIN-Kolleg)
2015 American Journal of Political Science Best Article Award for “Group Segregation and Urban Violence”
2015 Nominated for ETH Dissertation Award (ETH Medal)
2015 Nominated for Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) Award 2015
2015 Nominated for Swiss Institute of International Studies (SIAF) Award 2015
Grants
2023–2026 TRANSFORM grant supporting the creation of the UZH Population Research Center (project co-lead, details)
2021–2024 DIZH Infrastructure grant for establishing the DigiVox Panel Survey infrastructure (project co-lead, details)
2021–2022 BAKOM Funding in support of the Stop Hate Speech project consortium led by Alliance F (project co-lead, details)
2020-2022 InnoSuisse Funding in support of the Stop Hate Speech project consortium led by Alliance F (project co-lead, details)
2019-2023 WIN Program: Fake News and Collective Decision Making – Rapid Automated Assessment of Media Bias (project lead, details)
2018-2021 DFID: Modeling Early Risk Indicators to Anticipate Malnutrition, MERIAM (IHEID project co-lead, details)
2014-2018: NSF INSPIRE: Computational Modeling of Grievances and Political Instability through Global Media (postdoctoral researcher, details)
2014-2018 MINERVA: Aiding Resilience? The Impact of Foreign Assistance on the Dynamics of Intrastate Armed Conflict (postdoctoral researcher, details)
Professional Service
Manuscripts:
Social Science: American Political Science Review; American Journal of Political Science; British Journal of Political Science; Journal of Conflict Resolution; Journal of Peace Research; Research & Politics; Political Science Research and Methods; Political Geography; Journal of Information Technology & Politics; International Studies Quarterly; European Political Science Review; Terrorism and Political Violence; Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy; Rationality and Society; Ethics and Information Technology
General Interest and Methodology: Nature; Science Advances; Physical Review Letters; Nature Communications; Physical Review E; Journal of the Royal Society Interface; Scientific Reports; Annals of Applied Statistics; Humanities and Social Sciences Communications; Advances in Complex Systems; PLoS ONE; Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Grant Proposals: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF); US National Science Foundation (NSF); German Research Foundation (DFG); Minerva Research Initiative
Memberships
European Political Science Association
Swiss Political Science Association
American Political Science Association
International Studies Association
Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft