Distinguished Ph.D Dissertation Award

Kai-Cheng Yang finished second in the mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering category for the 2024 Indiana University Distinguished Ph.D Dissertation Award.

Yang’s dissertation focused on better understanding the behaviors of malicious bots and address their negative social media impact by using machine learning models to develop novel bot detection methods and make them publicly available.

“This empowers social media users to safeguard against bot manipulation,” he said, “and enables researchers to explore the behaviors and impacts of social bots in various contexts.”

Yang presented evidence that showed malicious bots were strategically deployed to disseminate misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said study results revealed that people overestimated the threat posed by bots and are vulnerable to bot manipulation due to inherent biases. He suggested future research directions for bot detection and the dynamics of human-bot interactions.

“My work significantly enhances our understanding of social bots, which continue to play an integral role in our online information ecosystem.”

Kai-Cheng is now a postdoctoral research associate at the Network Science Institute, Northeastern University. His current research aims to uncover how generative AI is used for deceptive and disruptive purposes and develop countermeasures leveraging AI technologies.