Research

The project researchers use a mixed method approach to examine federal AI consultations (2023–2025) and then compare the US approach to other democracies. What can the US learn and how can it ensure that a wide variety of Americans are "heard." This project will examine key gaps in participation, communication, and responsiveness, and explore how consultative processes might be improved to better reflect public concerns and strengthen trust in AI governance.

This project examines how AI-driven surveillance enhances state control while also creating new opportunities for civil activism. Moving beyond earlier debates that framed digital technologies as either liberating or repressive, the research focuses on how these dynamics interact in practice—shaping political behavior, collective action, and state-society relations.

Drawing on survey experiments with Asian, Black, and Latino Americans, the study tests whether a Person of Color's (POC) identity shapes both vote choice and willingness to support non-co-racial minority candidates. This project addresses two key gaps: the extent to which POC identity translates into support for non-co-racial representation, and how solidarity across racial and ethnic groups operates in electoral contexts. 

Using a survey experiment with 2,000 American adults, the study tests whether expressive partisans are disproportionately likely to invoke this disbelief shield when genuine content implicates their own party. The core argument is that fabricated images can be fact-checked, but motivated disbelief is far harder to dislodge, making AI misattribution potentially more corrosive to democratic accountability than deep fakes themselves.

This project investigates how exposure to industry-associated health misinformation shapes public trust in regulatory institutions, attitudes toward government authority, and civic participation among U.S. adults. Combining computational analysis of Reddit and YouTube content with a nationally sampled survey, the study maps how these narratives spread and assesses their broader democratic effects.