Core Department Faculty Member
- Thomas Davidson
- Assistant Professor
- PhD. Cornell University, 2020
- Email: thomas.davidson@rutgers.edu
- Office: Davison Hall
- Personal Website
- Twitter: @thomasrdavidson
- Curriculum Vitae
- Google Scholar
Thomas Davidson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University in 2020. His research interests include political sociology, social movements, and computational methodology. His research uses digital trace data from social media and other websites combined with statistical analysis and computational methods, including natural language processing and machine learning. His current research addresses the following questions:
How do ranking and recommendation algorithms used by social media platforms shape opportunities for activists?
Why are hate speech detection algorithms biased against minorities and how can these biases be fixed?
How can large language models and generative artificial intelligence contribute to sociological research?
Dr. Davidson teaches classes including Statistics Methods in Sociology, Computational Sociology, and the Sociology of Culture.
- In the Public Eye:
- Published op-eds in The Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog on the relationship between social media activity and far-right support in Germany and Italy.
- Interviewed by The New Scientist, Vox, and Business Insider about his research on automated hate speech detection.
- Faculty Article(s):
- Black Box Models and Sociological Explanations: Predicting High School GPA Using Neural Networks
- Britain First and the UK Independence Party: Social Media and Movement-Party Dynamics
- Engaging Populism? The Popularity of European Populist Political Parties on Facebook and Twitter, 2010–2020
- Identifying latent themes in suicide among black and white adolescents and young adults using the National Violent Death Reporting System, 2013–2019
- Start Generating: Harnessing Generative Artificial Intelligence for Sociological Research
- Black Box Models and Sociological Explanations: Predicting High School GPA Using Neural Networks
- Program Areas:
- Culture and Cognition
- Organizations, Networks, and Work
- Politics and Social Movements
