Samuel Woolley is the inaugural William S. Dietrich II Endowed Chair in Disinformation Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication. His research is focused on how emergent technologies are used in efforts to manipulate global communication processes. His internationally recognized work on computational propaganda—the use of automation, AI, and algorithms in attempts to manipulate public opinion online—has revealed the ways in which a wide variety of groups around the world leverage social bots, artificial intelligence, and coordinated armies of influencers to control the flow of information during pivotal events.
Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, Woolley was an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin--where he also founded and led the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement. He is also the founding director of the Digital Intelligence Lab, a research and policy oriented project at the Institute for the Future—a 50-year-old think-tank located in Palo Alto, CA. Before this he served as the director of research at the National Science Foundation and European Research Council supported Computational Propaganda Project at the University of Oxford and University of Washington.
Woolley regularly writes commentary articles focused on issues related to technology and society. His public work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Guardian, The Atlantic, Wired, Fast Company, Lawfare, TechCrunch, Slate, The Hill, Teen Vogue, the Toronto Star, The Miami Herald, The Austin American Statesman, MIT Technology Review, Quartz and other venues. He has exhibited work related to his research at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design and created practical toolkits for Omidyar Network and Data & Society. For his research, Woolley has appeared in numerous publications and on many news programs internationally. He has testified on his work before the United States Congress and his work has been presented to members of the United Nations, NATO, the EU Parliament, UK Parliament, and others.
- PhD, University of Washington
Education & Training
Woolley is the author of four books on digital propaganda and disinformation: Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity (2023, Yale University Press), Bots (with Nick Monaco--2022, Polity), The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth (2020, PublicAffairs), and Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media (edited with Philip Howard, 2018, Oxford University Press). He has written numerous journal articles in academic journals across a range of disciplines including New Media & Society, PLoS One, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Journalism Studies, Journal of Democracy, Big Data & Society, Convergence, Political Research Quarterly, and others. He has served as a guest editor for special issues of the International Journal of Communication and Social Media+Society and as the author and editor of paper series from Data & Society, Protect Democracy, the Oxford Internet Institute, Google Jigsaw, and others. He has written invited essays and white papers for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Brookings Institution, the Anti-Defamation League, The National Endowment for Democracy, The Ripon Society, USAID, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, The Hoover Institution, Google News Labs, and others.
Woolley's research on digital politics, automation/AI, social media, and political polarization has been supported by large grants from Omidyar Network (ON), the Miami Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the New Venture Fund for Communications, and others. He has held past affiliations and fellowships with the Project for Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University, the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) at the University of California at Berkeley, the Digital Innovation Democracy Initiative at the German Marshall Fund, the Belfer Program at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Science and Technology, the Tech Policy Lab at the University of Washington’s Schools of Law and Information, the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University, Google Jigsaw, and GLOBSEC.