ABOUT ME
I’m a third-year Information Science PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh working with Prof. Yu-Ru Lin. My research explores how individuals interact and behave in digital spaces, focusing on what captures people’s attention online, how information spreads, and how communities form and evolve within cyber-social spaces. I study the role of network structures in shaping online behaviors and social dynamics, using Machine Learning and NLP methods to analyze large-scale datasets from platforms such as Twitter/X, Facebook, and TikTok. A key part of my work involves drawing causal inferences from observational data to uncover the underlying mechanisms driving these digital interactions. I am also deeply interested in the ethical dimensions of AI, particularly in addressing algorithmic bias and promoting fairness in socio-technical systems. Through my research, I aim to generate insights into how people engage in online communities while contributing to developing more responsible and interpretable AI systems.
Feel free to reach out!
Research Interests
Computational Social Science, Network Analysis, Causal Inference, Responsible AI
News
- [Apr 2025] Passed my Comprehensive Exam!
- [Apr 2025] Presented a talk on the visibility dynamics of political elites at the IEEE Technical Symposium in Western Pennsylvania
- [Jul 2024] Our paper titled ‘Political Elites in the Attention Economy: Visibility Over Civility and Credibility?’ has been accepted to ICWSM 2025!
- [Jul 2024] Attended the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS) and IC2S2 conference at the University of Pennsylvania
- [Mar 2024] Won People’s Choice Award in 3 Minute-Thesis Competition organized by School of Computing and Information at Pitt
- [Mar 2024] Passed my Preliminary exams (with Distinction)!
Publications
- Biswas, A., Lin, YR., Tai, YC., Desmarais BA. Political Elites in the Attention Economy: Visibility Over Civility and Credibility? Accepted in ICWSM 2025. DOI
- Biswas, A., Niven, T., Lin, YR. Political Narratives During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling (SBP-BRiMS) 2023. DOI
- Mokhberi, M., Biswas, A., Masud, Z., et. al. 2023. Development of a COVID-19 related anti-Asian tweet data set: Quantitative study. JMIR Formative Research. DOI