Jorge Nathan Matias

J. Nathan Matias will spend his fellowship year on the science and governance of runaway catastrophes between human and algorithm behavior. These feedback loops routinely amplify hatreds and escalate discrimination, while also enhancing efforts for the common good. Yet both social scientists and computer scientists have struggled to predict or manage collective human-algorithm behavior at scale. As a behavioral scientist and computer scientist, Matias will work alongside affected communities to advance the science of human-algorithm behavior by testing pragmatic interventions for a fairer, safer, more understanding Internet.

Matias is a Guatemalan-American assistant professor at the Cornell University department of communication and information science department. He leads the Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) at Cornell, an industry-independent research group that organizes community/citizen behavioral science and consumer protection research for digital life. Matias has published 20 peer-reviewed articles in leading general scientific, computer science, and social science venues, including PNAS, Scientific Data, the International Journal of Communication, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, FaCCT, and the USENIX Security Symposium. His work is routinely cited in policymaking by national governments and technology firms alike. Matias has also published public-interest data journalism with The Atlantic, The Guardian, and FiveThirtyEight.

Matias, who has a background in technology startups, completed his PhD at the MIT Media Lab and undergraduate degrees from Cambridge University and Elizabethtown College. He has held positions at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy, and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

For more information, see his website at https://natematias.com