Full Name
Dr. J. Nathan Matias
Job Title
Founder
Company
CivilServant
Speaker Bio
Dr. J. Nathan Matias (@natematias) organizes citizen behavioral science for a safer, fairer, more understanding internet. A Guatemalan-American, Nathan is an assistant professor in the Cornell University Department of Communication.
Nathan is founder of CivilServant, a nonprofit that organizes citizen behavioral science and behavioral consumer protection research for the internet. CivilServant has worked with communities of tens of millions of people on reddit and Twitter to test ideas for preventing harassment, broadening gender diversity on social media, responding to human/algorithmic misinformation, managing political conflict, and auditing social technologies. In 2019, CivilServant is integrating operations with Cornell University. Nathan is also pioneering industry-independent evaluations on the impact of tech platform policies in society.
From 2017-2019, Nathan was an associate research scholar at Princeton University in Psychology, the Center for Information Technology, and Sociology. In 2017, Nathan completed his Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab with Ethan Zuckerman on the governance of human and machine behavior in an experimenting society (video) (thesis). Before MIT, Nathan worked in tech startups that have reached over a billion phones, helped start a series of education and journalistic charities, and studied postcolonial literature at the University of Cambridge and Elizabethtown College. His writings have appeared in The Atlantic, PBS, the Guardian, and other international media.
When not doing research, teaching, and organizing, Nathan enjoys sailing, facilitating gatherings for creative learning, having conversations about technology and faith, and working on projects that make you laugh, then think.
Nathan is founder of CivilServant, a nonprofit that organizes citizen behavioral science and behavioral consumer protection research for the internet. CivilServant has worked with communities of tens of millions of people on reddit and Twitter to test ideas for preventing harassment, broadening gender diversity on social media, responding to human/algorithmic misinformation, managing political conflict, and auditing social technologies. In 2019, CivilServant is integrating operations with Cornell University. Nathan is also pioneering industry-independent evaluations on the impact of tech platform policies in society.
From 2017-2019, Nathan was an associate research scholar at Princeton University in Psychology, the Center for Information Technology, and Sociology. In 2017, Nathan completed his Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab with Ethan Zuckerman on the governance of human and machine behavior in an experimenting society (video) (thesis). Before MIT, Nathan worked in tech startups that have reached over a billion phones, helped start a series of education and journalistic charities, and studied postcolonial literature at the University of Cambridge and Elizabethtown College. His writings have appeared in The Atlantic, PBS, the Guardian, and other international media.
When not doing research, teaching, and organizing, Nathan enjoys sailing, facilitating gatherings for creative learning, having conversations about technology and faith, and working on projects that make you laugh, then think.
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