New Chair of "Digital Technology, Governance and Policy"

09/26/2023

The Hasso Plattner Institute continues to grow: Dr Gillian Bolsover joins HPI and will take on the professorship for „Digital Technology, Governance and Policy“ at the joint Digital Engineering Faculty of the University of Potsdam and the Hasso Plattner Institute, starting on October 1st. This is a highly relevant field of research for society. The scientific focus of the professorship is on the analysis of computational propaganda and the effects of bots, algorithms, disinformation and other forms of automated political opinion manipulation on politics and society, as well as the changing nature of politics and citizenship in the Internet Age. This professorship is funded by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) for a period of five years.

Before joining the HPI, Dr Bolsover worked as a Lecturer in Politics and Media at the University of Leeds and as a Researcher in the Social Sciences at the University of Oxford's Internet Institute. Dr Bolsover has published influential research on misinformation in the 2016 US and French Presidential Elections, Chinese state computational propaganda and occupation of online spaces, and online ethno-nationalism in the 2019 Indian General Election.
 
Dr Bolsover is looking forward to joining the HPI, bringing a social science perspective to the Digital Engineering Faculty, and building research networks with colleagues at the HPI and other academic and policy researchers in the Berlin-Brandenburg area.

About the Hasso-Plattner-Institute

The Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam is Germany's university center of excellence for digital engineering (https://hpi.de). With the bachelor's degree program "IT-Systems Engineering", the shared digital engineering faculty of HPI and the University of Potsdam offers a unique and particularly practice-oriented engineering computer science program that is unique in Germany and is currently attended by around 800 students. In five master's degree programs, "IT Systems Engineering", "Digital Health", "Data Engineering", "Cybersecurity" and "Software Systems Engineering", students can build on this to set their own research priorities. 

In the CHE university rankings, HPI always occupies top positions. The HPI School of Design Thinking, Europe's first innovation school for students following the example of the Stanford d.school, offers 300 places per year for additional studies. HPI currently has 21 professors and over 50 other visiting professors, lecturers and instructors. It conducts excellent university research - in its IT disciplines, but also in the HPI Research School for doctoral students with its research outposts in Cape Town, Irvine, Haifa and Nanjing. 

HPI teaching and research focuses on the fundamentals and applications of large, highly complex and networked IT systems. In addition, there is the development and research of user-oriented innovations for all areas of life.