Padinjaredath Suresh Vishnuprasad

You can call me Vishnu (he/they).

DMRC PhD STUDENT & STAND-UP COMEDIAN

I am an Internet Studies PhD student at the Digital Media Research Center, QUT in Brisbane, Australia. I am working with an interdisciplinary team headed by Prof. Axel Bruns on his ARC Laureate project on the dynamics of polarisation and partisanship in online discourses. My PhD is centred around methodologically exploring trajectories of algorithmic radicalisation.

I did my Bachelor of Sciences and Master of Sciences (BS-MS) Dual Degree at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Tirupati (IISER Tirupati). I graduated in 2022 with a thesis specialisation in Physics.

My research interest broadly covers the social impact of algorithmic discourses including polarization, radicalisation, and disinformation proliferation. I address these questions quantitatively using mathematical modelling, network science, and data science methods. I did my master’s thesis on the spatiotemporal spread of disinformation in the 2020 US Presidential Elections. The project was called S4CH: Search 4 Computational Hate and was funded by an Emergent Ventures Grant.

I am also a stand-up comedian who has performed in Australia, Switzerland, India, and virtually.

Here is my latest (as of February 2023) Curriculum Vitae.

Publications

Gianluca Nogara, Padinjaredath Suresh Vishnuprasad, Felipe Cardoso, Omran Ayoub, Silvia Giordano, and Luca Luceri. 2022. The Disinformation Dozen: An Exploratory Analysis of COVID-19 Disinformation Proliferation on Twitter. In 14th ACM Web Science Conference 2022 (WebSci ’22)[https://doi.org/10.1145/3501247.3531573].
Padinjaredath Suresh, V. (2022). Tracking Evolution of Coordinated Activity on Twitter [MS Thesis].
Padinjaredath Suresh Vishnuprasad, Gianluca Nogara, Felipe Cardoso, Stefano Cresci, Silvia Giordano, and Luca Luceri. 2023. Tracking Fringe and Coordinated Activity on Twitter Leading up to the US Capitol Attack [arXiv preprint].

Research Experience

PhD Student, QUT DMRC, Queensland, Australia | Aug 2022-Present
Working with Prof. Axel Bruns On The Dynamics of Polarisation and Partisanship in Online Discourses, Methodologically Exploring Trajectories of Algorithmic Radicalisation.
Master’s Dissertation Student, SUPSI, Switzerland | Jan 2021-May 2022
Working With Dr Luca Luceri On Spatiotemporal Spread of Computational Hate in Indian Social Media
Student Researcher, Indian Institute Of Science Education And Research Tirupati, India | Jan 2020-Nov 2020
Working With Prof. G Ambika On Political Polarization And Spreading Behaviour In Complex Networks
Summer Research Intern, Simon Centre for Living Machines (National Centre for Biological Sciences), India | May-July 2019
Working in Dr Shashi Thuttupalli‘s Lab on Self-assembly in Colloidal Systems. Worked closely with the Outreach Office and the NCBS Archives in documenting Lab Life in audio and video looked into the Basics of Network Theory and Spreading Behaviour
Ecology Field Research Intern, Andaman & Nicobar Environment Team (ANET), India (A&N Islands) | May 2018-June 2018
Working with Dr Vardhan Patankar on Bleaching in Coral Reefs and as a Field Assistant on a Remote Island.

Achievements

Queensland University of Technology Postgraduate Research Award (QUTPRA) in 2022 to complete a Doctor of Philosophy at the Digital Media Research Centre with full funding for 3½ years.
Emergent Ventures Grantee in 2021 for the project S4CH: Search 4 Computational Hate
Selected for the Simon-NCBS Monsoon School in 2019 on Physics of Life and presented a short research project on a Mathematical Treatment of Hyperparasitism
Winner of National Scientific Genius Hunt 2014 conducted by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India

Skills

PYTHON:
SciPy, NumPy, networkx, Keras, scikitlearn, TensorFlow, pandas
MATHEMATICAL MODELLING:
Nonlinear Dynamics, Complex System Analysis, Linear Algebra
I ALSO HAVE SOME BACKGROUND IN:
graduate-level biology, g_μνeneral and special theory of relativity(-ish) & putting down hecklers.