Marian-Andrei Rizoiu

Marian-Andrei Rizoiu is an Associate Professor leading the Behavioral Data Science lab at the University of Technology Sydney. His interdisciplinary research crosses computer and social sciences, blending psycholinguistics, digital communication and stochastic modelling to understand human attention dynamics in the online environment, the emergence of influence and opinion polarization. Marian-Andrei is the recipient of the prestigious Excellence Award and Academic of the Year at the 2023 Australian Defence Industry Awards. He currently leads grants worth $1.8 million from the Commonwealth of Australia to detect and model the spread of mis- and disinformation and its weaponized counterparts – information and influence operations.

Marian-Andrei's research has made several key contributions to online popularity prediction, real-time tracking and countering disinformation campaigns, and understanding shortages and mismatches in labour markets. First, he developed theoretical models for online information diffusion, which can account for complex social phenomena. His models answer questions such as “Why did X become popular, but not Y?” and “How can problematic content be detected based solely on how it spreads?". Second, he built skill-based real-time occupation transition recommender systems. These systems link social media-predicted personality profiles with occupation skill requirements to construct personalized career recommendations. His recommender systems answer questions like “Are some jobs better suited to one's personality?” and “Can one be happier and more engaged with a job aligned with their personality?". Individuals can use these recommender systems to ask: “What jobs can I readily perform based on my current skills?” and “What skills should I acquire to transition to a new job?”

Marian-Andrei's research receives funding from selective funders such as Meta (Facebook) Research, Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), The Department of Home Affairs and the Defence Innovation Network. In addition, he publishes in the most selective venues, such as the PNAS, PLOS ONE, PLOS Computations Biology, WWW, NeurIPS, IJCAI, and CIKM. As a result, his work has received significant media attention—including Bloomberg Business Week, Nature Index, BBC, and World Economic Forum.

Marian-Andrei disseminates his research to the broader public by regularly contributing to The Conversation. In addition, he also leverages his research to real societal impact by, for example, serving as an expert for the NSW government's Defamation Law Reform or providing evidence for the Australian Federal Senate inquiry into media diversity.