Nick Judd, PhD

I use social science knowledge, tools and practices to lead teams that work on issues in online trust and safety, digital media, and the Internet in civic life.

I am currently Lead Data Scientist at the Digital Safety Research Institute.

Previously, I led work on metrics and evaluation for Twitter's Birdwatch project, which is now called ``Community Notes.''

Before joining Twitter, I was a postdoctoral fellow at The University of Chicago. I taught politics and society, and quantitative research methods. I have also held fellowships at Pew Research Center Data Labs and The Sunlight Foundation.

I hold a PhD in sociology from The University of Chicago, with concentrations in social statistics and democratic politics. Before my academic turn, I was a reporter, writer, and editor. My last position in media was as managing editor of techPresident, a news site covering technology and politics. (It's not really around anymore.)

You can email me at nick at nclarkjudd.com.

Selected works

Academic publications

Finding facts with polarized crowds Wojcik, Stefan, Sophie Hilgard, Nick Judd, Delia Mocanu, Stephen Ragain, M.B. Fallin Hunzaker, Keith Coleman, Jay Baxter. “Birdwatch: Crowd Wisdom and Bridging Algorithms can Inform Understanding and Reduce the Spread of Misinformation.” Working paper. https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.15723.

A research agenda for political sociology Martin, John Levi and Nick Judd. 2020. “Tasks of the Political Sociology of the Next Ten Years.” In The New Handbook of Political Sociology, edited by Thomas Janoski, Cedric de Leon, Joya Misra and Isaac Martin. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Partisan conflict on social media Messing, Solomon, Patrick VanKessel, Adam Hughes, Nick Judd, Rachel Blum and Brian Broderick. February 2017. “Partisan Conflict and Congressional Outreach.” Pew Research Center.

Software

Understanding network structure Judd, Nicholas. sparseca: Correspondence analysis for large sparse networks. Chicago, IL: 2020. https://github.com/nclarkjudd/sparseca.

Revealing "issue advocacy" spending in United States politics Judd, Nicholas. poindexter: A software package for processing IRS data on 527 political organizations. Chicago, IL: 2018. https://github.com/nclarkjudd/poindexter.

Text as data from the Congressional Record Judd, Nicholas, Dan Drinkard, Jeremy Carbaugh, and Lindsay Young. congressional-record: A parser for the Congressional Record. Chicago, IL: 2017. https://github.com/unitedstates/congressionalrecord.

Reporting and essays

A Recent History of Uber: Lobbying, Lawsuits, and a 'Scuffle'. Vice.com. July 18, 2014.

Michael Scherer, Please Remember We've Argued Over NSA Spying Since Before Millennials Were a Thing. TechPresident. June 13, 2013.

Ender's Game: The Problem With "The End of History" In Technology Debates. TechPresident. April 29, 2013.

The Guns and Gun Data Debate, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the End of Privacy. TechPresident. Jan. 11, 2013.

Meet the newest tech start-up: the Obama campaign. Yahoo News. April 6, 2012.

The fast-paced frenzy of a low-tech Supreme Court. Yahoo News. June 27, 2012.

How Free Software Activists are Hacking Occupy's Source Code. TechPresident. Sept. 17, 2012.

#OWS: Tech-Savvy Occupiers Hope to Open-Source a Movement. TechPresident. Nov. 21, 2011.

Local candidates add Internet to campaign arsenal. The Riverdale Press. Aug. 21, 2008.