Ideas Made to Matter
New MIT podcast explores the promise and peril of data
How is data used to lead, mislead, manipulate, and inform viewpoints and decisions? The MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society investigates.
Apr 4, 2023
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Dean Eckles
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Dean Eckles is the Mitsubishi Career Development Associate Professor and an Associate Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan. He is affiliate faculty at the Institute for Data, Systems & Society in the Schwarzman College of Computing.
His substantive research examines people's interactions with and through communication technologies, especially the ways these technologies mediate, amplify, and direct social influence. This work sometimes requires or benefits from new analytical methods, so Eckles also works on applied statistics, design of field experiments, and causal inference.
Prior to joining MIT, he was a scientist at Facebook, where he worked on many product areas and analytical methods, including News Feed, messaging, advertising, tools for randomized experiments, and survey methods. Eckles previously worked in research at Nokia and Yahoo.
Eckles received his BA in philosophy, a BS and MS in cognitive science, an MS in statistics, and a PhD in communication, all from Stanford University.
Honors
Eckles wins Amazon Research Award
Publications
Featured Publication
"Bias and High-Dimensional Adjustment in Observational Studies of Peer Effects."
Eckles, Dean, and Eytan Bakshy. Journal of the American Statistical Association Vol. 116, No. 534 (2021): 507-517. Supplemental Materials. arXiv Preprint.
Featured Publication
"Estimating Peer Effects in Networks with Peer Encouragement Designs."
Eckles, Dean, René F. Kizilcec, and Eytan Bakshy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Vol. 113, No. 27 (2016): 7316-7322.
"Perverse Consequences of Debunking in a Twitter Field Experiment: Being Corrected for Posting False News Increases Subsequent Sharing of Low Quality, Partisan, and Toxic Content."
Mohsen Mosleh, Cameron Martel, Dean Eckles, and David G. Rand. In Proceedings of the 2021 ACM CHI Virtual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New York, NY:. Forthcoming.
"Spillover Effects in Experimental Data."
Aronow, Peter M., Dean Eckles, Cyrus Samii, and Stephanie Zonszein. In Cambridge Handbook of Advances in Experimental Political Science, edited by Donald P. Green and James Druckmann, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Forthcoming. arXiv Preprint.
"Targeting for Long Term Outcomes."
Yang, Jeremy, Dean Eckles, Paramveer Dhillon, and Sinan Aral. Management Science. Forthcoming. arXiv Preprint.
"Long Ties, Disruptive Life Events and Economic Prosperity."
Jahani, Eaman, Samuel P. Fraiberger, Michael Bailey, and Deak Eckles, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6875-22. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2023.
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Media Highlights
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National Cyber Security News Today
4 ideas for understanding and managing the power of algorithms on social...
Associate Prof. Dean Eckles moderated the "Algorithmic Transparency” session at the Social Media Summit at MIT.
Press
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TechRepublic
4 ideas for understanding and managing the power of algorithms on social...
At The Social Media Summit, conversations ranged from the war in Ukraine and disinformation to transparency in algorithms and responsible AI.
Press
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The Week (India)
Study shows how pro-BJP toolkits get hashtags trending on Twitter
[Prof.] Dean Eckles [and co-authors] said their study provided the first systematic analysis of cross-platform campaigns.
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The Washington Post
A group of moms on Facebook built an island of good-faith vaccine debate...
... research supports the idea that social media can be a force for pro-vaccine persuasion, under the right circumstances.