Dr. J. Nathan Matias

I study digital governance and behavior change in groups and networks shaped by algorithms. I collaborate with the public in citizen behavioral science, working for a world where digital power is guided by evidence and accountable to the public.

I am a Guatemalan-American assistant professor at the Cornell University Departments of Communication and Information Science, where I lead the Citizens & Technology Lab (full bio here). My research contributes to scholarship in social pscychology and computer science.

I am also a co-founder and executive committee member of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research. In the summer of 2023, I am a visiting associate research scholar at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Recent Articles

• Matias, J.N. (2023) Influencing Recommendation Algorithms to Reduce the Spread of Unreliable News by Encouraging Humans to Fact-Check Articles, in a Field Experiment. Scientific Reports.
  • Blog post: A Rosetta Stone for Socio-Technical Science of Human-Algorithm Behavior
• Matias, J.N. (2023) Humans and algorithms work together — so study them together. Nature.
• Matias, J.N., Lewis, N. A., Hope, E. (2022) U.S. Universities Are Not Succeeding in Diversifying Faculty. Nature Human Behavior.
  • Flaherty, Colleen (2022) Study finds true faculty diversity possible by 2050. Inside Higher Ed.
• Matias, J.N., Pennington, E. Chan, Z.T. (2022) Testing Concerns about Technology’s Behavioral Impacts with N-of-one Trials. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
  • Blog post: “when researchers study average treatment effects with between-subjects tests, their findings often exclude consideration of minority and marginalized groups”
• Matias, J.N., Wright, L. (2022) Impact Assessment of Human-Algorithm Feedback Loops Just Tech. Social Science Research Council.
• Zong, J., Matias, J.N. (2022) Bartleby: Procedural and Substantive Ethics in the Design of Research Ethics Systems. Social Media + Society.
  • Blog post: Designing & Evaluating Research Ethics Systems
• Matias, J. N., Lewis, N., Hope, E. (2021) Universities Say They Want More Diverse Faculties. So Why is Academia So White?. FiveThirtyEight.
• Matias, J. N., Munger, K., Aubin Le Quere, M., Ebersole, C. (2021) The Upworthy Research Archive, a time series of 32,487 experiments in U.S. media. Scientific Data (Nature).
• Kaiser, B., Wei, J., Lucherini, E,. Lee, K., Matias, J.N., Mayer, J. (2020) Adapting Security Warnings to Counter Misinformation. 30th USENIX Security Symposium.
• Matias, J. N., Mou, M. E., Penney, J., & Klein, M. (2020). Do Automated Legal Threats Reduce Freedom of Expression Online? 🤖🤭 Preliminary Results from a Natural Experiment. (preprint).
• Matias, J. N., Al-Kashif, R., Kamin, J., Klein, M., Pennington, E. (2020) 💗Volunteers Thanked Thousands of Wikipedia Editors to Learn the Effects of Receiving Thanks. Citizens and Technology Lab (preprint)
• Matias, J. N., Simko, T., Reddan, M. (2020) Reducing the Silencing Role of harassment in Online Feminism Discussions 🎯😷. Citizens and Technology Lab
• Matias, J.N. (2020) Why We Need Industry-Independent Research on Tech & Society 🍔. Cornell Citizens & Technology Lab.
• Zuckerman, E., Matias, J. N., Bhargava, R., Bermejo, F., & Ko, A. (2019). Whose Death Matters? A Quantitative Analysis of Media Attention to Deaths of Black Americans in Police Confrontations, 2013–2016. International Journal of Communication, 13, 27.
  • Blog announcement: Whose deaths matter? New research on Black Lives Matter and media attention
• Matias, J. N. (2019). Preventing harassment and increasing group participation through social norms in 2,190 online science discussions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(20), 9785-9789.

Guide for Journalists & Event Organizers

As someone who regularly gives keynotes, appears on panels, and commits acts of journalism, I do what I can to support high quality conversation on tech and society: as a speaker, as a source, and by helping you find experts. I also collaborate with journalists on data journalism projects related to tech companies, their policies, and online behavior. To invite me to give a talk, see my page about talks and speaking.

Reach out if I can help; over the last few years I have supported journalists on background, with suggested sources, statistics feedback, and served as a named source for journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, The Markup, NPR All Things Considered, WIRED, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Boston Globe, Canadian Broadcasting Company, FastCompany, Fortune, Chronicle of Higher Education, Nieman Journalism Review, and the Columbia Journalism Review, to name a few.

For questions related to the Citizens and Technology Lab and my academic work at Cornell, please write me at nathan.matias@cornell.edu.