Publications

In progress:

Emergence and Evolution of Public Discourse

These projects examine how large populations communicate following major societal shocks and how early discourse evolves into sustained collective patterns.

• Early Evolution of Large-Scale Public Discourse Following a Societal Shock

(with C. W. Leach, B. Wondimu, N. Anand, & C. Cogburn)

This project studies how decentralized public communication responds to sudden crises, modeling discourse as a dynamic system in which participation, framing, and emotional tone co-evolve. Using millions of timestamped social media messages, the study identifies inflection points where discourse escalates, stabilizes, or fragments, demonstrating how emergence can be measured quantitatively in real time.

Temporal Dynamics of Emotion, Grief, and Collective Memory

These projects focus on how populations process trauma collectively and how emotional dynamics unfold over time.

• Temporal Dynamics of Public Grief
  (with C. W. Leach, B. Wondimu, & C. Cogburn)
  This work develops a quantitative framework for studying collective emotional processing following traumatic public events. Grief is modeled as a dynamic process interacting with time, topic focus, and network structure, revealing distinct emotional regimes and transitions.
• Validating the Dual-Pathway Model Using Temporal Analysis of Emotions and Thematic Content in BLM Tweets
  (with C. W. Leach & C. Cogburn)
  This study tests the dual-pathway model of collective action by linking emotional trajectories and thematic framing to mobilization and moralization dynamics over time.

Network Structure, Timing, and Systemic Risk

These projects investigate how timing and structure shape vulnerability and coordination in economic and social systems.

• Diurnal Patterns of Financial Systemic Risk
  (with S. Kojaku & T. Kobayashi)
  This project demonstrates that systemic financial risk exhibits strong diurnal structure, arising from the interaction of network topology, liquidity provision, and institutional schedules.
• Economic Network Structure and Food Access in a U.S. Connector State: Evidence from New Jersey
  This work conceptualizes food access as a networked socioeconomic phenomenon, demonstrating how structural connectivity shapes access to essential resources and identifying leverage points for policy intervention.

Collective Action, Judgment, and Opinion Dynamics

These projects develop systems-level frameworks for understanding mobilization, polarization, and decision-making under uncertainty.

• Densification and Emotion-Driven Network Evolution in Open Social Systems
  This project adapts densification scaling and temporal network analysis to large-scale online discussion networks, revealing systematic phases of growth, fragmentation, and reorganization.
• Heuristics and Judgment Under Uncertainty in Public Discourse
  Grounded in behavioral economics, this work examines how cognitive shortcuts shape judgment during periods of uncertainty, operationalizing bounded rationality at scale using linguistic and temporal markers.
• Beyond Progress vs. Regress: Societal Change as Dynamic Evolution
  (with C. W. Leach)
  This project introduces a hybrid computational model of opinion dynamics grounded in schismogenesis, capturing emotion-driven feedback loops and identifying tipping points leading to polarization, disengagement, or consensus.