// work with me
How I can help
I help organizations understand complicated technologies, interpret messy evidence, and make more grounded decisions about safety, quality, and accountability.
Expert Witness
Evidence-based analysis on recommendation systems, content moderation, online harms, platform governance, child safety, and related questions at the intersection of technology and society.
- How platform features, ranking systems, and product decisions shape user behavior and outcomes
- Interpreting complicated or apparently conflicting evidence for legal audiences
- Litigation, regulatory inquiries, and high-stakes matters involving technology and social impact
Advisory
Strategic guidance on how technology interacts with people, incentives, and institutions — and how to improve products, policies, and processes.
- Clarifying where harms emerge and why
- Evaluating evidence, measurement challenges, and competing interpretations
- Supporting more grounded decisions about safety, quality, and accountability
Speaking
Keynotes, panels, and briefings that help non-experts understand how technology, incentives, and human behavior combine to create real-world outcomes.
- Recommendation systems, trust and safety, child safety, platform governance, polarization, and technology-facilitated violence
- Conferences, universities, policy forums, legal audiences, and public events
- Clear, engaging, and useful to mixed or non-technical audiences
Workshops
Practical sessions that help teams make sense of complicated technologies, messy evidence, and difficult tradeoffs.
- Interpreting platform evidence and measurement challenges
- Understanding how harms emerge in socio-technical systems
- Making more grounded decisions about safety, quality, and accountability
// select speaking venues
// selected feedback
“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.”
Ryan Beiermeister
VP at OpenAI · formerly Head of Civic Product & Director at Meta
“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.”
Sagnik Ghosh, Ph.D.
Lead Engineer at Anthropic · formerly Senior Engineer at Meta
“Matt and I worked together on global integrity issues at Meta. I can confidently say that Matt is one of 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 after everyday conversations with him.”
Niki Ramchandani
Senior Researcher at Meta
“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. 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 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.”
Robert Thorstad, Ph.D.
Data Science Manager at Meta
“Matt 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. His presentations always have the entire room's attention. Matt is fantastic at what he does and would be a huge asset on any team.”
Leo Angelhescu
Lead Data Scientist at GoodRx · Senior Data Scientist at Meta · Senior Analytics and Data Science Manager at Fandango
“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. Anyone who has the opportunity to work with Matt should consider themselves truly lucky!”
Rachel Brown
Executive Director · Over Zero
“Matt is an amazing mentor and an incredible person. His 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.”
Lagnajita Chatterjee, Ph.D.
Professor at Worcester State University · Senior Market Research Manager at Ipsos
“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.”
Fabio Votta, Ph.D.
Data Scientist at Constructive Dialogue Institute · Researcher at the University of Amsterdam
“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.”
Deeptish Mukherjee
Data Scientist at Meta
“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.”
Sarah Sibley
Tech Lead Manager at Meta
“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. Seriously, Matt's as good as it gets, and he won't be available for long. I recommend reaching out to him today.”
Eli Finkel, Ph.D.
Bestselling Author, New York Times Contributor, and Professor at Northwestern University
“I was a long-time collaborator with Matt at Meta on work to get broader adoption of methodologies for quantifying conversations and integrating with product. Matt is an incredible colleague, researcher, and presenter. He has the ability to dive deep into technical work and go broad with explaining the work to stakeholders. Matt is an expert on communication research, bringing fresh ideas to existing product areas, and I hope I have the chance to work with him again. Any team would be lucky to have him!”
Kristen Altenberger, Ph.D.
Research Scientist at Meta