Selected Publications

M Waniek, G. Raman, B AlShebli, JCH Peng, T Rahwan (2021). "Traffic Networks are Vulnerable to Disinformation Attacks". Scientific Reports.

G. Raman, B AlShebli, M Waniek, T Rahwan, JCH Peng (2020). "How Weaponizing Disinformation Can Bring Down a City's Power Grid". PLOS ONE. Media coverage: Science Alert, Fast Company.

F. Ishowo-Oloko, J. Bonnefon, Z. Soroye, J. Crandall, I. Rahwan, T. Rahwan (2019). "Behavioural Evidence for a Transparency-Efficiency Tradeoff in Human-Machine Cooperation". Nature Machine Intelligence. The paper made the cover of the November issue. Media coverage: Boston Globe, Nature Middle East, Khaleej Times, WIRED, Psychology Today, New Statesman, Scientific American.

M. Waniek, K. Zhou, Y. Vorobeychik, E. Moro, T. Michalak, T. Rahwan (2019). "How to Hide One’s Relationships from Link Prediction Algorithms". Scientific Reports. Media coverage: El País Technología.

B. AlShebli, T. Rahwan, W. Woon (2018). “The Preeminence of Ethnic Diversity in Scientific Collaborations”. Nature Communications. Media coverage: Nature News, Physics World.

M. Waniek, T. Michalak, M. Wooldridge, T. Rahwan (2018). "Hiding Individuals and Communities in a Social Network". Nature Human Behaviour. Media coverage: Vice's Motherboard.

For a full list of papers, see my Google Scholar page.

Selected Media Coverage

Weaponizing Disinformation

Our paper, titled "How weaponizing disinformation can bring down a city's power grid" showed that disinformation can be weaponized to bring down a city's power grid. The study was covered by Science Alert and Fast Company.
In a follow-up study titled Traffic Networks are Vulnerable to Disinformation Attacks, published in Scientific Reports, showed that one can create traffic jams using fake news.

Transparency in Human-Bot Interaction

Our paper, titled "Behavioural Evidence for a Transparency-Efficiency Tradeoff in Human-Machine Cooperation" showed that people cooperate more with machines that pretend to be human.
The paper made the cover of the November issue of Nature Machine Intelligence
Selected media coverage: Boston Globe, Nature Middle East, New Statesman, Psychology Today, WIRED, Scientific American.

Ethnic diversity & scientific collaborations

In our paper, "The preeminence of ethnic diversity in scientific collaboration", which was published in Nature Communications, we studied various forms of diversity in academic collaborations, and found that ethnic diversity predicts scientific impact.
The paper received coverage from Physics World. A preliminary version of the paper was covered in a News feature by Nature.

Hiding in social networks

Our paper, titled "Hiding Individuals and Communities in a Social Network", which was published in Nature Human Behaviour, was covered by Vice's Motherboard and by the Polish Ministry of Higher Education. The paper showed how groups can strategically rewire their social network to avoid being detected by Community Detection algorithms.
Our followup study, titled "How to Hide One’s Relationships from Link Prediction Algorithms", published in Scientific Reports, was covered by El País (the 2nd most circulated daily newspaper in Spain). Our study showed how people can hide their private relationships from Link Prediction algorithms.

AI's 10 to Watch

I was selected by IEEE Computer Society as one of AI's 10 to Watch. The list is published every 2 years by IEEE Intelligent Systems in recognition of the 10 most promising, young Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers in the world.

Meet the Team

We are hiring! If you are interested in joining the team, get in touch. Over the past few years, I was lucky to work with such a diverse group of talented researcher and students whom I am proud to call my team:

Marcin Waniek

My postdoc, working on identifying ways in which private information can be hidden from attribute inference algorithms. His work got published in Nature Human Behaviour; see Marcin's webpage.

Bedoor AlShebli

Formerly my PhD student and my postdoc, now an Assistant Prof. at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her work got published in Nature Communications, PNAS, and Science Advances; see Bedoor's webpage.

Maria Sahakyan

My postdoc, identifying ways in which various techniques from the Explainable AI literature can be used as generic Data Analysis tools.

Fengyuan Liu

Currently my PhD student at New York University Abu Dhabi, focusing on analyzing scientific collaborations and studying the behaviour of journal editors.

Russell Coke

Formerly my capstone student, now working with me as a research engineer, focusing on improving web-access for the developing world.

Mayada Oudah

Formerly my PhD student, and now a Postdoc at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her work on Human-Bot interaction was published in Nature Communications.

Sid Benabderrahmane

My postdoc, using Machine Learning and Data Mining to analyze health-related datasets. See Sid's Google Scholar profile.