Dr. J. Nathan Matias

Founder · CivilServant
Postdoctoral Research Associate · Princeton University
C.V. (pdf) · @natematias · Blog on Medium · Princeton Blog · MIT Blog

I am a computational social scientist who works with millions of people in citizen behavioral science toward a safer, fairer, more understanding internet. I advance this work through CivilServant and as a postdoc at Princeton University departments of Psychology, Sociology, and Center for Information Technology Policy.

In 2017, I completed my Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab & Center for Civic Media with Ethan Zuckerman on the governance of human and machine behavior in an experimenting society (video) (thesis). During gradschool, I spent four wonderful several years as a fellow and affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and was a research intern at Microsoft Research Fuse Labs and the Social Media Collective.

Before MIT, I 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. My writings have appeared in The Atlantic, PBS, the Guardian, and other international media.