Welcome to my page. My name is Otto. I am a first-year Ph.D. student in Media, Technology, and Society at the School of Communication, Northwestern University, advised by Dr. Yingdan Lu.
I received my bachelor's degrees in Journalism (Honors) and Data Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where I was honored with the James L. Baughman Senior Achievement Award, the highest undergraduate recognition at School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
My research sits at the intersection of communication, computational methods, and AI. Current areas of focus include:
- Information manipulation in digital environments: how propaganda and strategic communication circulate across platforms in both authoritarian and democratic contexts
- Computational methods for social science: building transparent, reproducible tools that bridge the gap between computer science and social science
- Generative AI for social science: evaluating when and how LLM-based simulations can responsibly complement traditional research methods
- Agentic AI for research: designing human-in-the-loop workflows that automate routine tasks while preserving space for genuine insight
As an undergraduate research assistant at UW–Madison's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I contributed to the Social Media and Democracy (SMAD) group led by Dr. Dhavan Shah and the Cognitive Effects Research Group (KEG) led by Dr. Douglas McLeod. My work involved everything from intricate data engineering to building machine learning models, aiming to untangle complex social dynamics through computational methods.
I am particularly passionate about developing innovative tools that make computational research more interpretable and accessible. I also build and maintain open-source software for research workflows.
In my downtime (when I'm not debugging code or chasing elusive data points), you might find me doing camping, car detailing or cooking with my cat Callie.