hello!

I’m a Senior Lecturer (associate prof.) in Communication, Media & Democracy in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Prior to joining the UofG, I was an inaugural Derby Fellow in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool (Jun 2019-Jun 2022), and a post-doctoral researcher at the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University (2017-2019). I hold a Ph.D. in Communication from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Broadly speaking, I am interested in studying the interplay between political communication and technologies. My research is primarily concerned with digital threats to democracy, with an emphasis on incivility and intolerance online, mis- and disinformation, democratic backsliding, and other forms of ‘dark participation’, i.e., how digital media can be used to undermine democratic norms and values. I’m also interested in political campaigning, deliberation, and participation online.

I am PI in a grant awarded by Facebook to investigate perceptions of uncivil and intolerant discourse online in four countries, and in a grant awarded by WhatsApp to study misinformation and political discussion in Brazil. I’m also PI in a British Academy Small Grant to study democratic backsliding in the 2022 presidential elections in Brazil. I am also co-PI in three externally funded projects: a grant awarded by Twitter to study conversational dynamics around polarization, incivility, and intolerance in discussions around contentious and non-contentious topics in the U.S. and the U.K.; a comparative research project funded by Facebook to study visual misinformation on social media and mobile messaging apps in eight countries across five continents; and a Knight Foundation grant to study social media advertising in the 2020 US presidential campaign, as part of the Illuminating project, led by Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley.