Emilio Ferrara is an Italian-American computer scientist, researcher, and professor in the field of data science and social networks. As of 2022, he serves as a Full Professor at theUniversity of Southern California (USC), in theViterbi School of Engineering^[1] andUSC Annenberg School for Communication,^[2] where he conducts research on computational social science, network science, and machine learning. Ferrara is known for his work in the detection ofsocial bots and the analysis ofmisinformation on social media platforms.^[3]

Emilio Ferrara received his Bachelor's degree, Master's degree, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from theUniversity of Messina.^[4] During his doctoral studies, Ferrara spent one semester at theTechnical University of Vienna and two semesters at theRoyal Holloway, University of London. While a visiting Ph.D. student at theTU Vienna, Ferrara studied data mining in the research group of ProfessorGeorg Gottlob. AtRoyal Holloway, University of London, he studied machine learning under the supervision of Professor Alberto Paccanaro.^[4]

After completing his doctoral studies, Ferrara held various academic positions^{[clarification needed]}, first atIndiana University and then at theUniversity of Southern California, where, in 2022, he was promoted to Full Professor.

Ferrara's research focuses oncomputational social science,network science, andmachine learning, with an emphasis on understanding and modeling human behavior inonline social networks. He has made significant contributions to the areas ofsocial bot detection,^{[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}political manipulation,^{[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]} the analysis ofmisinformation,^{[22][23][24][25][16][26]}disinformation,^{[27][28][29][30][31]} andconspiracy theories,^{[32][23][33][34][35]} the dynamics ofemotional contagion on social media platforms,^[36][37][38] andgenerative AI bias.^[39]

Emilio Ferrara has received numerous awards and honors for his research, including:

• The 2016DARPA Young Faculty Award^[40]
• The 2017 Complex Systems Society Junior Scientific Award^[41]
• The 2019 Viterbi Junior Faculty Research Award^[42]
• The 2022Research.com Rising Stars of Science^[43]
• He was elected AAAI Fellow in the 2025 Class^[44]

Ferrara's research contributed to the understanding of the extent and impact of foreign interference in the 2016 US Presidential election.^[45] His paper titled "Social bots distort the 2016 US Presidential election online discussion," which was the only peer-reviewed paper published before the November 8, 2016 election, investigated the influence operations carried out by Russia's Internet Research Agency by means of social bots on Twitter.^[46]

The paper suggested that social bots had a notable impact on the dynamics of the online conversation surrounding the election, potentially manipulating public opinion and shaping the discourse. This work provided insights into how social bots were utilized as a tool for information warfare and highlighted the potential consequences of their unchecked proliferation on social media platforms.

Ferrara's findings attracted the attention of the US Senate, which cited his research during the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.^[47] His work contributed to the understanding of the scope and tactics used by foreign actors to sway public opinion and played a role in shaping the response to this challenge to the democratic process.

Ferrara served as an expert trial witness for theDelaware Court of Chancery on the subject of false and spam accounts in the context of thelitigation betweenTwitter andElon Musk.^[45][48]

• American computer scientists
• Italian computer scientists
• Complex systems scientists
• University of Southern California faculty
• Living people
• Network scientists
• Fellows of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox person with deprecated parameters
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from August 2023
• Year of birth missing (living people)