Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor and Director, SAFELab
School of Social Policy and Practice, Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Desmond Upton Patton is a pioneer in merging social work, communications, and data science. He is the Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication, as well as a secondary appointment in psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Patton is the most cited scholar on the relationship between social media and gang violence, examining how online communities influence offline behavior. His research on detecting trauma and preempting violence on social media led to his expertise in language analysis, AI bias, and advisory roles with Twitter and Spotify. He developed the Contextual Analysis of Social Media (CASM) approach to incorporate culture and context into machine learning, helping organizations foster inclusive environments and reduce bias in AI.
In 2018, he published a groundbreaking study in Nature Digital Medicine on grief as a pathway to aggressive communication on Twitter, cited in an amici curiae brief for the U.S. Supreme Court case Elonis v. United States. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Vice News, ABC News, and more.
Previously, Dr. Patton was a professor at Columbia University, where he held leadership roles in social work and data science. He has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the 2018 Deborah K. Padgett Early Career Achievement Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility.
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