Dr Milena Tsvetkova

Dr Milena Tsvetkova

Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science

Department of Methodology

Room No
CON.2.11
Office Hours
Please refer to Student Hub for details
Connect with me

Languages
English
Key Expertise
Computational social science, Online experiments, Network analysis

About me

"My work is interdisciplinary and combines theories and methods from sociology, social psychology, behavioural economics, network science, and computer science. I have collaborated with computer scientists, physicists, a philosopher, a management scholar, a mathematician, and an ecologist. I am also particularly proud of working closely and publishing together with LSE students."
- Dr Milena Tsvetkova reflects on the prominent themes of her research as part of our 30th Anniversary celebrations. Read the full close-up with Methodology faculty.

 

Milena Tsvetkova is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Methodology. She completed her PhD in Sociology at Cornell University in 2015. Prior to joining LSE in 2017, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computational Social Science at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.

Research interests

Milena’s research interests lie in the fields of computational and experimental social science. She employs online experiments, network analysis, and agent-based models to study fundamental social phenomena such as cooperation, contagion, and inequality.

Her current work investigates the structural conditions under which inequality emerges and worsens when individuals interact in large social groups. In collaboration with computer scientists, physicists, organizational scientists, and game developers, she is working on incorporating gamification to develop new methods for large-scale social interaction experiments online.

Expertise Details

Computational social science; Online experiments; Network analysis; Agent based modeling; Cooperation; Collective behavior; Sociology; Social psychology.

Selected publications

M. Tsvetkova, O. Vuculescu, P. Dinev, J. Sherson, C. Wagner. 2022. Inequality and fairness with heterogeneous endowments. PLoS ONE 17(10) 

J.E. Kim and M. Tsvetkova. 2021. Cheating in online gaming spreads through observation and victimizationNetwork Science 9(4):425–442.

M. Tsvetkova. 2021. The effects of reputation on inequality in network cooperation gamesPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 376:20200299.

M.V. Reiss and M. Tsvetkova. 2020. Perceiving education from Facebook profile picturesNew Media & Society 22(3):550–570

M. Tsvetkova, A. Mao, and C. Wagner. 2018. The Emergence of Inequality in Social Groups: Network Structure and Institutions Affect the Distribution of Earnings in Cooperation Games. PLoS ONE, 13(7), e0200965.

M. Tsvetkova, R. García-Gavilanes, L. Floridi, and T. Yasseri. 2017. Even Good Bots Fight: The Case of Wikipedia. PLoS ONE 12(2): e0171774.

M. Tsvetkova, R. García-Gavilanes, and T. Yasseri. 2016. Dynamics of Disagreement: Large-Scale Temporal Network Analysis Reveals Negative Interactions in Online Collaboration. Scientific Reports 6:36333.

M. Tsvetkova, O. Nilsson, C. Öhman, L. Sumpter, and D. Sumpter. 2016. An Experimental Study of Segregation Mechanisms. EPJ Data Science 5:4.

M. Tsvetkova and M.W. Macy. 2015. The Social Contagion of Antisocial Behavior. Sociological Science 2:36-49.

M.W. Macy and M. Tsvetkova. 2015. The Signal Importance of Noise. Sociological Methods and Research 44(2):306-328.

M. Tsvetkova and M.W. Macy. 2014. The Social Contagion of Generosity. PLOS One 9(2):e87275.

A.K. Shaw, M. Tsvetkova, and R. Daneshvar. 2011. The Effect of Gossip on Social Networks. Complexity 16(4):39-47.