University of Haifa2024
PhD, Information & Knowledge ManagementHaifa, Israel
- Dissertation: Online Deliberation and Data Journalism
- Advisor: Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli
About
I study how information environments shape who participates in online public discourse and under what conditions coordination happens, combining game theory, causal identification, and computational methods applied to large-scale online news commenting data. My research sits at the intersection of information systems, economics, and computational social science. My primary empirical setting is large-scale online news commenting, where I analyze how journalistic information design influences the coordination dynamics that precede network formation. Methodologically, I combine formal modeling (global games, rational inattention, strategic complementarities) with causal identification strategies and text-based computational methods applied to corpora of millions of observations.
I completed my PhD at the University of Haifa under Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli. My background spans philosophy, education, healthcare analytics, and official statistics, fields that have each sharpened a different part of how I think about data, rationality, and evidence. I approach empirical questions with a commitment to both theoretical grounding and methodological rigor, and I am drawn to research settings where the stakes for democratic participation are real.
Currently a Statistician at the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel.
Education
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem2015
MA, PhilosophyJerusalem, Israel
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem2010
BA, PhilosophyJerusalem, Israel
Academic Positions
Reichman University (IDC Herzliya)2021–2022
Adjunct Lecturer, Lauder School of GovernmentHerzliya, Israel
- Taught “Introduction to Data Science with Python for Government.”
University of Haifa2015–2018
Research Fellow, Center for Internet ResearchHaifa, Israel
- Designed and launched OpenPISA, an open-data platform for the OECD PISA database.
Publications
Information Systems & Online Deliberation
- Fewer but More Elaborate: How Information Accessibility Filters Participation and Shapes Online News Comments. Journalism Studies. Forthcoming
- Before Ties Form: How Information Environments Shape Collective Engagement Through Coordination Dynamics. Under review at Information Systems Research. SSRN
- Conversations with data: How data journalism affects online comments in the New York Times. Proceedings of HICSS-58, 8, 2386–2395. ScholarSpace
- Data, sense, and sensibility: How data journalism style shapes interactivity. Selected Papers of Internet Research (AoIR). DOI
- Independence through data journalism. Selected Papers of Internet Research (AoIR). DOI
- Open PISA: Dashboard for large educational dataset. Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Learning@Scale, 253–256. DOI
Healthcare Analytics
- Changes in trends of visits and service utilization by mental health patients in the community: a twelve-year study in Israel. Israel Journal of Health Policy Research.
- Reported penicillin allergy in Israel: Clinical outcomes and antibiotic costs in a nationwide population-based cohort study. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Global.
- Association Between AZD7442 (Tixagevimab-Cilgavimab) Administration and SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Hospitalization, and Mortality. Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Conferences Without Proceedings
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Jun 2026
When Information Is Both Costly and Empowering: Equilibrium Selection Under Strategic Complementarities. Accepted42nd Annual Conference of the Israel Economic Association (IECA), Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University
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Aug 2026
Information Environments and the Structure of Political Discussion Networks. AcceptedPolitical Networks Conference, University of Manchester
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Jul 2026
Beyond Who Shows Up: Information Design and Online Political Discourse. Accepted“Elections in Times of Crisis” Conference, Israeli Political Science Association, Reichman University
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May 2026
The Architecture of Evidence: How Data Journalism Restructures the Topology of Online Deliberation.COMPTEXT Conference, University of Birmingham
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2025
Now You See Me: Using Generative AI to Drive Engagement with Data Visualizations. PosterIEEE VIS Workshop on GenAI, Agents, and the Future of VIS, Vienna
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2025
Modeling How Data Journalism Shapes Discussion Networks. PosterIsrael Statistics and Data Science Association (ISDSA)
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2020
Does Data Journalism Engage Its Audience?Computation + Journalism Symposium, Virtual Event
Invited Talks & Seminars
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2024
Data journalism and learning analytics.Learning Analytics Café MOOC (Prof. Ido Roll), Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Technion
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2017
How can the public be encouraged to investigate educational questions?Research Workshop of the Israel Science Foundation, Technion
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2017
Education data journalism.Open Media and Information Lab, Open University of Israel
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2015
Data journalism.Special Seminar for World Statistics Day, Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
Professional Experience
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Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)Statistician2024–PresentJerusalem, Israel
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Maccabi Health ServicesData Scientist2021–2024Tel Aviv, Israel
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Corona National Information and Knowledge CenterData Scientist2020–2021Israel
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Center for Educational Technology (CET)Data Scientist2018–2020Tel Aviv, Israel
Research Grants
- Trump Family Foundation (2015–2020): $120,000 for the Open PISA Project.
- AllCloud Co. (2017): $11,000 for cloud hosting support.
- DAAD Center for German Studies (2010–2011): $10,000 for “Narrative, Dreams, Imagination.”
Technical Skills
Methodologies: NLP, SNA, time-series forecasting, psychometric modeling, causal inference
Tools: Python (pandas, scikit-learn, NetworkX), R (tidyverse, fixest, igraph), SQL