Eni Mustafaraj

I am a computational data scientist who studies the online information environment shaped by the interactions of algorithms, humans, and organizations. I typically focus on one web-based sociotechnical system at a time. I have studied Twitter, Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Since November 2023, I have turned my focus to TikTok. Students in my research lab, Wellesley Cred Lab, and in my 300-level course, CS 315 Data Science for the Web, are building tools to audit TikTok’s recommendation algorithm and study the flow of information in this platform. 

I love collaborations! Since my arrival at Wellesley in 2008, I have had many long and rewarding research collaborations. During 2008-2014, I collaborated with Prof. Takis Metaxas, Samantha Finn ‘12 and a large number of Wellesley students in studying how rumors or other kinds of information spread in social networks like Twitter. From 2013-2017 I collaborated with Prof. Franklyn Turbak, Maja Svanberg ‘18, and Isabelle Li '20 on using data science and machine learning to understand how people learn to program in the MIT App Inventor online platform. Since 2015 I have been collaborating with Prof. Julie Walsh (Philosophy) on ways of integrating ethics of technology in our computer science and data science curriculum. Most recently, we received a grant from the NSF to support our work. As part of our project, we are co-teaching a cross-listed CS/PHIL course on Methods for Ethics of Technology and have started LEED (Laboratory on Ethics and Equity in Digital tech). Collaborating with other Wellesley faculty, I have co-founded the Data Science major; the Wellesley CAPS (Computational Analysis for Political Science) Lab with Prof. Maneesh Arora, and the Wellesley CHEL (Computational Housing Economics Lab) with Prof. Kyung Park. 

I am particularly proud of the students of my research lab, the Wellesley Cred Lab. Many of the lab alums, with whom I have co-authored research papers while they were undergraduate students are excelling in graduate school, Emma Lurie ‘19, Khonzoda Umarova ‘20, Annabel Rothschild ‘20, Anna Kawakami ‘21, Junita Sirait ‘22. Mentoring undergraduate students is one of the main joys of my work at Wellesley and I have been fortunate to receive the NSF CAREER award to support this kind of research-focused teaching and mentoring.

Other courses I teach are CS111 Computer Programming and Problem Solving, one of the most fun and challenging intro courses at Wellesley, and two data science related courses: CS 234 Data, Analytics, and Visualization and CS 315 Data Science for the Web, in which my students work on real-world projects closely related to my research and learn how to use data science to make a social impact. 

I love listening to podcasts and audiobooks. Some of my favorite living authors are Kazuo Ishiguro, Neal Stephenson, Rachel Cusk, and Elif Batuman. I like both speculative/science fiction (Ishiguro, Stephenson, etc.) and fictionalized memoirs (Cusk, Batuman, etc.).

Last updated on February 2024.