Jeffrey T. Hancock

Jeffrey T. Hancock is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University. He is also the Founding Director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and Director of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford. His research focuses on how technology, like social media and AI, affects our well-being and is reshaping human trust, communication, and collaboration. He leads the Empowering Diverse Digital Citizens Lab, a twice-funded Stage 2 SIL investment. 

Hancock and his team work on understanding psychological and interpersonal processes in social media. They specialize in using computational linguistics and experiments to understand how the words we use can reveal psychological and social dynamics, such as deception and trust, emotional dynamics, intimacy and relationships, and social support. As a Stanford Impact Labs Design Fellow in 2019-2020, he initiated a project to explore the effects of technological use on the well-being of youth to better inform public debate and policy.

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Listen to a story Professor Hancock told on stage about the Stanford Social Media Lab's work in April 2024 as part of Testing Ground Live! Social Science on Stage, a storytelling show produced by Stanford Impact Labs and The Story Collider.