Lab Director: Dr Jon Roozenbeek
Jon Roozenbeek is Director of the Influence and Technology Lab, which sits between the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and the Department of Communication Science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He studies (mis)belief formation, intergroup conflict, polarisation, and the use and misuse of modern communication technologies. He holds a PhD in Slavonic Studies (2020), also from the University of Cambridge, for which he studied propaganda and ideology-building in Russian-occupied Donbas (Ukraine). Jon has authored two recent books with Cambridge University Press: The Psychology of Misinformation (with Prof. Sander van der Linden) and Propaganda and Ideology in the Russian-Ukrainian War. In addition, he has written more than 70 peer-reviewed publications, published in journals including Science, Nature, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Communications, Nature Computational Science, PNAS, Science Advances, and Psychological Science. His work has been awarded numerous distinctions, including the 2024 Rising Star Award (Association for Psychological Science) and the 2025 Jim Sidanius Early Career Award (International Society of Political Psychology), and he is among the top 1% most-cited scientists worldwide.
Dr Jon Roozenbeek's Google Scholar page
Postdoctoral Research Fellow: Yara Kyrychenko
Yara Kyrychenko is an incoming Junior Research Fellow at St. John’s College, Cambridge. As a Gates Scholar, she is finishing her PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine, she graduated summa cum laude from New York University with a double major in Mathematics and Psychology. As a PhD candidate co-advised by Prof. Sander van der Linden and Dr Jon Roozenbeek, she combines psychological theory with computer science methods to investigate both the dangers and the opportunities of social technology. Yara was part of The Alan Turing Institute’s Enrichment Scheme, focusing on the social evaluation of AI. She has also completed a research internship with Nokia Bell Labs’ Responsible AI team, working on Constitutional AI.
Yara Kyrychenko's Google Scholar page
PhD student: Malia Marks
Malia studies the psychological drivers of support for authoritarian governance, and is funded by the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Program. She began her studies at Harvard where she obtained a BA in psychology with Highest Honors, having completed an empirical research thesis on short-term risk factors for suicide in psychiatric inpatients. She then completed a MPhil in Criminological Research at Cambridge's Institute of Criminology, earning a distinction and placing first for her research on the victim-offender overlap and psychological impact of violent victimisation over time. In her current work, supervised by Dr Jon Roozenbeek and Prof. Lee de-Wit, Malia is using exploratory statistical analyses and applying theories from social psychology to improve the field's understanding of the right wing authoritarianism scale, as well as to develop an alternative scale for authoritarianism with improved cross-cultural validity. She is also collaborating on a range of projects, using time-series analysis and large language model classifiers to analyse social media data.
Malia Marks' Google Scholar page
Research affiliate: Dr Anton Dek
Dr Anton Dek is a data scientist and researcher with a background in both academic research and applied industry work. Originally from Ukraine, he works as a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School and has led data science teams in the private sector. His expertise includes the application of large language models (LLMs), digital assets, and social media manipulation research. He is also an expert on illicit markets and “grey” economies, particularly in the post-Soviet space.
Dr Anton Dek's Google Scholar page
Research affiliate: Miriam Remshard
Miriam is doing her PhD in Psychology at the University of Cambridge funded by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. Originally from Germany, she graduated from the University of Oxford with a First-Class Honours degree in Experimental Psychology. Subsequently, she completed her master’s at Yale University, where she expanded upon her quantitative research background by using qualitative methodologies to study climate change misperceptions. During her time at Yale, she also worked as a Social Data Scientist with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. As a PhD Candidate, she is developing her line of inquiry from her master’s research by exploring barriers to effective climate action and how psychological interventions can be used to foster more impactful behaviour.
Visiting PhD student: Edoardo Loru
Edoardo is a PhD candidate at the Sapienza University of Rome with a background in Physics (B.Sc.) and Data Science (M.Sc., cum laude), working under the supervision of Prof. Walter Quattrociocchi at the Center for Data Science and Complexity for Society (CDCS). He is visiting the ITLab during the spring and summer of 2026. His research lies within computational social science, using data science to study online social dynamics and emergent behavior such as misinformation spreading, online polarization, and coordinated behavior, as well as the societal impact of large language models. He takes a data-driven approach drawing mainly on network science, alongside statistical and machine learning methods. He has authored multiple publications in journals such as PNAS and ACM TKDD. In particular, his research on the simulation of judgment in large language models has received considerable attention in relation to the reliability of current AI systems. He has been invited to present at academic seminars and has presented at international conferences.