Past Dissertation Award Winners

Past Dissertation award recipients

Awards (in alphabetical order):

Luisa Fassi, Ph.D. candidate Medical Sciences, University of Cambridge - “Social Media Use and Adolescent Mental Health: Integrating Clinical Populations, Time-Series Dynamics and Youth-led Insights”
Benjamin Lira Luttges, Ph.D. candidate, Psychology, University of Pennsylvania - “Empirical Evidence That Using AI Tools Can Enhance Human Cognition”
Dan-Mircea Mirea, Ph.D. candidate, Psychology, Princeton University - “Uncovering Socio-cognitive Mechanisms of Mental Health and Psychotherapy From Digital Behavior”

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):

Michael Geers, Ph.D., Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development - “Understanding and Boosting Decision Making in Online Environments”
Claire E. Robertson, Ph.D., Psychology, New York University - “The Overabundance of Extremity in the Online World”
Thomas Scheurer, Ph.D., Economics and Management, University of Lucerne - “More than Meets the Eye: Value Creation Potentials and Pitfalls of Augmented Reality Product Displays”

Awards (in alphabetical order):

Lauren Eales, University of Minnesota - “Children’s Media Use, Family Psychological Functioning, and Parental Media-Based Racial Socialization during the Dual COVID-19 and Whiteness Pandemics”
Mayaan Malter, Columbia University - “Perceptions of Disability: Implications for New Product Design and Marketing”
Sumer Vaid, Harvard Business School - “Social Media Sensitivity: Probing Heterogeneity Across People, Places, Platforms, Types of Use and Time”

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):

Huili Chen, MIT - “Robots as Social Catalysts: A Multidisciplinary Framework for Designing Embodied Social Agents that Foster Long-term Human Collaboration and Connection”
Shahryar Mohsin, Bocconi University - “Gender-Ambiguous Digital Voices and Consumers Judgment”
Ertuğrul Uysal, ETH Zürich - “The Rise of Intelligent Technologies and Social Media: Implications for Human-Technology Relationships”

Awards (in alphabetical order):

Sakshi Ghai, University of Cambridge - “Diversifying Social Media Research: A New Culturally Informed Approach”
Gordon Heltzel, University of British Columbia - “Actual and Anticipated Reactions to Cross-Party Political (Dis)Engagement”
Julia Spielmann, University of Illinois - “Gender Stereotypicality Fosters Preference for and Credibility in Artificial Intelligence”

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):

Do The Khoa, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan - “Helping or Hurting: Can Assertive Language for Virtual Agents Help in Online Healthcare?”
Nirajana Mishra, Yale University - “Likes or Legacies? How Goals Impact the Value of User-Generated Content on Social Media”
Jens Paschmann, University of Cologne - “Essays on Digital Customer Engagement with New Technologies”

Awards (in alphabetical order):

Nicole Abi-Esber, Harvard University - “Behavioral Cues That Create Safe Spaces for Speaking Up”
Emaad Manzoor, Carnegie Mellon University - “Persuasion in Text-Based Communication”
Lisa Walsh, University of California at Riverside - “Does Your Smartphone Make You Unhappy? The Effects of Digital Media and Social Media on Well-being”

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):

Ian Anderson, University of Southern California - “The Psychology of Motivation to Post and Scroll on Social Media”
Hannah Mieczkowski, Stanford University - “Agency and Ownership in AI-Mediated Communication”
Simona Sciara, NYU/Sacred Heart University in Milan - “Self-Completion Processes Underlying Social Media Use”

Awards:

Ariella Kristal, Harvard - “Increasing Uptake of Technological Solutions for Self-Control Problems”
Bruno Oriol Porras, University of Barcelona - “Development of Virtual Reality-Based Exposure Techniques for Improving Anorexia Nervosa Treatment”
Steven Rathje, University of Cambridge - “Accuracy and Social Incentives Shape Belief in (Mis)information”

Honorable Mentions:

Gizem Ceylan, University of Southern California - “More Pictures More Words: The Use of Pictures and Text in Sharing Experiences”
Gizem Yalcin, Erasmus University Rotterdam - “Men versus Algorithm: Unraveling the Dynamics Between Humans and Algorithms in Consumer Behavior”
Ipek Demirdag, UCLA - “Consumer Responses to Algorithmic Decisions”
Lindsay Larson, Northwestern University - “Leading Teams in the Digital Age: Team Technology Adaptation in Human-Agent Teams”

Awards:

Lindsey Cameron, University of Michigan - “The rise of algorithmic work: Implications for organizational control and worker autonomy”
Poruz Khambatta, Stanford University - “Using artificial intelligence to examine facial first impressions”
Heather Yang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - “Press one to speak to a machine: Psychological factors that influence preference for interaction with artificially intelligent actors”

Honorable Mentions:

Rebecca Jablonsky, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - "Mindbending: An ethnography of meditation apps in an age of digital distraction"
Kristyn Jones, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center, CUNY - “Pre-report review of body-worn camera footage: An examination of stakeholder beliefs, laypeople’s judgments of officer credibility, and the consequences for officer memory”
Ted Schwaba, University of California, Davis - "Log on and prosper? Little evidence for co-development between psychological adjustment and technology use in older adulthood”

Awards:

Noah Castelo, Columbia University - “Blurring the line between human and machine: Marketing human-like machines and machine-like humans”
Diana M. Lisi, University of British Columbia - “Digital communication, social support networks, and interpersonal emotion regulation in emerging adults”
Hatim A. Rahman, Stanford University - “Understanding the impact of algorithmic reputations in online labor markets”

Honorable Mentions:

John F. Hunter, University of California at Irvine - “Smartphone usage as a potential aid for stress recovery”
Alison J. Martingano, The New School for Social Research - “Virtual reality: A computer-generated empathy pill?”
Kelsey Prena, Indiana University - “Video game setbacks and step-ups: The effects of the setback punishment on declarative memory”