Class of 2026

The Neukom Fellows Program, launched in 2012, supports interdisciplinary postdoctoral scholars conducting computationally focused research. Fellows hold two-year appointments, with the option for a third year, and are co-sponsored and mentored by faculty from at least two departments or programs. Each fellow teaches one course per year during their residency. The Class of 2026 Neukom Fellows, along with their departmental affiliations and descriptions of their research plans, are listed below.

Government and Quantitative Social Science; Mentors – Brendan Nyhan and Herbert Chang 

Avishai Green

Avishai is a political communication researcher who uses computational methods to study how truthfulness is constructed and weaponized in political discourse. His research examines how political values and authenticity are communicated and contested online, how populist politicians prioritize sincerity over factual accuracy, and how citizens use hypocrisy accusations to police political norms. As a Neukom Fellow, Avishai will develop NLP tools tailored to the detection of subtle rhetorical strategies across languages and platforms, applying them to questions about post-truth communication, populism, and democratic backsliding.

Earth Science and Geography: Mentors - Justin Strauss and Justin Mankin

Michael Hasson

Michael Hasson is a geomorphologist who focuses on interactions between rivers, climate, and the sedimentary record. His research examines Earth systems at a range of scales, from individual sand grains to global patterns of river migration. As a Neukom Fellow, Michael focuses on understanding how rivers respond to climate change and incorporating that knowledge into our understanding of carbon dynamics and climate feedbacks. He leverages global remote sensing datasets and machine learning to reveal the geomorphic signature of ongoing climate change. He also uses sedimentary deposits to improve our ability to learn from the stratigraphic record of past periods of climate change, bridging deep-time records of Earth history and modern climate challenges.

Sareena Chadha

Sareena is a social psychologist studying friendship, social networks, and conversation. Research on social connection is especially crucial in an age of rising loneliness, living alone, and remote work. Across projects, she has asked questions like: do we see ourselves the same way others do? Does that gap in perception matter for connection to a social network? What behaviors reliably happen in a conversation between friends, and how do those patterns differ for strangers?  How people see themselves, how they interact in conversation, and how they connect to their wider communities are interdependent processes. As a Neukom Fellow, Sareena is conducting research that will unpack this interdependence, using a combination of naturalistic paradigms, intensive longitudinal methods, and network analysis. Her academic work is a commitment to fostering, researching, and teaching about one of the most vital forces in daily life—friendship.