I am the Director & Head of Civic Product @ Meta. In my 2 years of working with Matt, his research was a critical foundation for cross-company-approach to improving societal outcomes. His work often resulted in step-changes to our product strategy - marrying his expertise in social science with cutting-edge quant and qual techniques. He was able to take extremely complex domains and data challenges - and generate actionable and clear insights for Product orgs. Most importantly: he displayed an unwavering commitment to people, society, equity, and our shared-goal to make the online world a better place. I would work with Matt again in a heartbeat - and am tremendously grateful for the way he helped all of us achieve more.

It's rare that a professor of Matt's level of skill and influence enters the broader market (industry, etc.). If you or someone you know wishes to hire an immensely skilled social scientist, you won't want to miss this opportunity. #MattMotylFTW

Serious, Matt's as good as it gets, and he won't be available for long. I recommend reaching out to him today. If you want more information feeling free to email me: finkel@northwestern.edu.

I was able to work with Matt in helping to translate insights from Facebook app's civic strategy to an Instagram-specific context. In doing so, I was struck by both the raw energy and unrivaled expertise Matt brought to his work. Matt had patiently and passionately built the case for his strategy over years, and politely but insistently brought his insights to senior leaders (e.g., c-suite). Eventually, Matt won them over.

I had not previously had a model for how an individual contributor could shape thinking at the highest levels of the company. Thanks to Matt, I now know what that looks like. It was a pleasure to work with Matt and I would jump at the chance to work with him again.

Matt and I worked together on global integrity issues at Meta. I can confidently say that Matt is one if the most talented researchers I have ever worked with. His deep understanding of people, civic discourse, and online behavior, combined with his superior methodological and quantitative skills, enabled him to make high impact contributions to our joint work.

He is a great mentor and peer and it is common to walk away feeling enriched and like you learned something new after everyday conversations with him. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with him and highly recommend him for positions in the social media and social sciences spaces.

Matt and I worked together for over a year in a thriving cross-functional team that aimed to improve online conversations. During the time, I had the privilege of having a front row seat to Matt's rich and multi-faceted understanding of online and offline discourse in general, and specifically civic discourse. Matt led a virtual team consisting of scores of engineers, researchers and data scientists to rigorously understand, define and operationalize corrosive conversations and figure out a clear strategy for how to reduce their online occurrences. Besides his extraordinary ability to engage with orthogonal functions to coordinate complex workstreams, Matt is gifted in conducting independent analytical research, using databases and technological tools to answer his own data questions and creating a clear and compelling evidence-based narrative to guide/inform decision-making for entire organizations.

While working with Matt, what stood out for me was his ability to empathize with users and their interactions with online technology, and using this understanding to drive positive changes in the product. Besides being one of the smartest people I've ever worked with, he is also one of the kindest and one of the most driven. His addition to any team or organization that is trying to understand their customers and the customer-product relationship would be a veritable asset, and I emphatically endorse him for any such role.

What is blindingly obvious from Matt's professional profile is that his output is at the level of the best ICs in the world in terms of quantity, quality, and impact of work; Matt worked on some of the most important civic projects in the family of apps while at Meta. What is less obvious but just as true is that Matt is just as strong an organizational citizen; as Matt describes, he took it upon himself to onboard tens of UXR and DS to the civic space at Meta (including myself), and as specific examples (i) I witnessed Matt mentor an intern so effectively that the summer project produced was executed and socialized at the scale and impact I would have been happy to produce myself, and (ii) Matt made himself frequently available to me to talk about how my work might fit in with the work his team does, even though most of his team (and perhaps he) had good reasons to believe the answer might be "not at all." Someone who combines this level of output and organizational stewardship is someone I would suggest snapping up immediately at any organization and likely carving out a special (large) slice of work for with the highest levels of impact.

Matt’s work is essential at this moment in time. His commitment to bringing research to bear on practice and to ensuring impact combined with his deep expertise in understanding the dynamics of polarization are unique. Matt is passionate about using his skills and expertise to identify and test approaches to meaningfully address divides, and I am confident that he will have tremendous impact wherever he brings his skills and experience. Anyone who has the opportunity to work with Matt should consider themselves truly lucky!

Matt is an amazing mentor and an incredible person. When I first reached out about his research, he happily invited me to join his lab meeting at UIC. I also had the good fortune to work with him closely on a research project and have him on my dissertation committee. During this time at UIC and even beyond, Matt’s guidance has been invaluable. I am lucky to know someone like Matt, who is not only an expert in the field but also happy to share that knowledge and help others thrive.

Matt was my supervisor at the non-profit organization OpenMind. As research director, his responsibility included the design and execution of the higher-level research agenda as well as direct guidance and mentorship to manage me as a research analyst.

I have come to know and appreciate Matt as a very experienced researcher who combines very technical and research skills with a great inspiring personality. As a supervisor, he was always caring and reliably provided me with the necessary support to fulfill my tasks - not least because of his numerous constructive suggestions when it comes to solving problems and getting things done.

Matt is an excellent colleague. He really stands out in his ability to distill complex technical concepts and data in simple terms. He has excellent technical abilities and communication skills, which is a potent combination, and he is great at advocating his work with key stakeholders across the company. I recommend Matt without hesitation.

Matt is an excellent colleague. He really stands out in his ability to distill complex technical concepts and data in simple terms. He has excellent technical abilities and communication skills, which is a potent combination, and he is great at advocating his work with key stakeholders across the company. I recommend Matt without hesitation.

Matt and I have worked together on several high impact, ambiguous and complex problems that spanned across several teams and functional areas. He is an extremely effective Quantitative Researcher: he is able to weave a data driven narrative with ease by marrying up research findings with relevant data to make very concrete and insightful points. He possesses the statistical modeling and data skills of an advanced Data Scientist and he is extremely comfortable with concepts and methods in this space. Matt is also very strong at presentation and communication: his analyses and write-ups are top notch and always contain clear product recommendations; his presentations always have the entire room's attention; he is very good at creating very clear and suggestive visualizations. These skills have cemented Matt as an indispensable contributor on the team and in the org as a whole. He is the type of Quant Researcher that goes above and beyond by helping teams understand trends, problems and opportunities and will work with cross-functional partners to turn recommendations into action. TLDR: Matt is fantastic at what he does and would be a huge asset on any team.