The Center for Security, Innovation, and New Technology (CSINT) is delighted to announce the newest addition to our CSINT team, Dr. Samantha Bradshaw, who will be joining American University’s School of International Service as an Assistant Professor in New Technology & Security and a CSINT Associate Faculty Member in Fall 2022.

Dr. Bradshaw is a leading expert on new technologies and democracy. Her research examines the producers and drivers of disinformation, and how technology—artificial intelligence, automation and big data analytics—enhance and constrain the spread of disinformation online. At the forefront of theoretical and methodological approaches for studying, analyzing, and explicating the complex relationship between social media and democracy, Dr. Bradshaw’s research has helped advance academic debate, public understanding and policy discussions around the impact of emerging technologies on political expression and privacy. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Stanford University working at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the Digital Civil Society Lab, and the Program for Democracy and the Internet. She is also a Research Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Partner Fellow with the Siegel Family Endowment.

Dr. Bradshaw’s scholarship uses a mix of computational and qualitative methods to answer foundational questions about technology, politics, and power: When do digital technologies enhance or constrain democracy? What roles do governments, companies, and civil society play in shaping civic life? And which policy interventions are most needed to improve online information ecosystems?

Currently, Dr. Bradshaw is working on several projects at the intersection of social media, platform governance, and democracy. Some of these projects include investigations into identity-based disinformation. For example, in an article in the International Journal of Communication, she explores how foreign state actors discuss women and women’s rights as part of their influence operations. In other projects, her work helps theorize, analyze, and explore the impact of content moderation practices on the online information ecosystem, by examining how labeling policies affect audiences of state-backed news, or exploring the effects of deplatforming certain users from mainstream platforms, for example.

Dr. Bradshaw’s research has generated significant academic and policy interest, as well as global media attention. She has published work in leading academic journals, including New Media & Society, Internet & Policy, Internet Technology & Regulation, American Behavioral Scientist, and the Columbia Journal of International Affairs. Her research and public writing has been featured by numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the Globe and Mail, the Financial Times, and Bloomberg Magazine. And she has spoken on expert-panels and delivered keynote lectures around the world, including international organizations such as UNESCO and NATO. She has also been involved in public policy discussions in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, briefing staff and providing expert-witness testimony to several ongoing political processes about the effects of technology on democracy. 

Dr. Bradshaw completed her PhD at the Oxford Internet Institute. Prior to her time at Stanford, she worked as a core member of the research team on the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University, and as a Research Associate at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo Canada on the Global Commission for Internet Governance.  

All of us at CSINT are excited to bring Dr. Bradshaw on board this upcoming fall semester. She is a valubale addition to the team and we look forward to her contribution to the Center.