The Faculty of Arts’ Early Researcher of the Year Award was created in 2005 and recognizes each year the exceptional work of a researcher or an artist among the regular professors of the Faculty of Arts who is in the beginnings of their career. The recipient is selected for the quality and the scope of their academic activities (research or research-creation), particularly as it relates to quality, productivity, contribution to student learning, and the ability to obtain research funding.
Dr. Elizabeth Dubois joined the University of Ottawa in 2016, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the Faculty of Arts. She is an internationally recognized researcher in the field of political communication and digital media. Her cutting-edge work on political bots and search algorithms has had significant and tangible impact on academic and public discourse.
Dr. Dubois current research examines political opinion formation processes and the role of automation such as social media bots. Dr. Dubois is a Fellow at the Public Policy Forum of Canada and co-leads Connected Canada, an initiative which brings together academics, policymakers, and civil society to understand citizenship in a digital context. Recently, she was the co-lead of the Digital Ecosystem Research Challengewhich aimed to support rigorous academic research into the impacts and uses of digital media during the 2019 Federal Election in Canada. The aim of this project was to map and understand the digital media ecosystem in order to support increased digital literacy among Canadians.
Her peer-reviewed articles are widely cited and have been published in top social science and communication journals, such as her latest piece “Who to Trust on Social Media: How Opinion Leaders and Seekers Avoid Disinformation and Echo Chambers.”. As one of Canada’s leading researchers in digital democracy, Dr. Dubois is active in the policy-making community and has co-authored seven influential reports in this field. She has appeared before two House of Commons committees and is regularly invited to speak with civil society groups, major news outlets, and a wide range of government departments and agencies.
Dr. Dubois completed her doctorate in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Her work considers how technology may be leveraged to increase democratic accountability and engagement.
Congratulations Dr. Dubois!