Dr. Ruben Bach new fellow in the Data and Methods Unit

Since October 2022, Ruben Bach is a fellow in the Data and Methods Unit at the MZES. He offers methodological support in questions related to computational social science, such as collection of information from novel data sources (e.g. social media, web scraping, online behavioral data) and machine learning and natural language processing techniques. Ruben is a director of projects at the MZES related to topics of fairness in algorithms (e.g. "Fairness in Automated Decision-Making — FairADM“) and polarization in online behavior ("Filter Bubbles, Alternative News and Political Polarization").

Ruben worked on his dissertation at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nürnberg and received his PhD in sociology from the University of Mannheim in 2018. He has a BA in social sciences from the University of Düsseldorf (2012) and an MSc in socioeconomics from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (2015). His research focuses on exploring novel data sources and machine learning/natural language processing algorithms for social research, social impacts of AI, and online news media consumption.

Ruben is also assistant research professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. Before joining the MZES, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mannheim.