1. Healthcare

Alexander Hanna
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Department of Sociology
8128 Sewell Social Science Building
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
[email protected]
alex-hanna.com
@alexhanna
Education
PhD Candidate, Sociology. Expected May 2016. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dissertation: “Automated Coding of Protest Event Data: Development and Applications”
Committee: Pamela Oliver (chair), Myra Marx Ferree, Chaeyoon Lim, Dhavan Shah, Xiaojin
(Jerry) Zhu
Minor: Journalism and Mass Communication
MS, Sociology. 2013. University of Wisconsin-Madison
Thesis: “Computer-aided Content Analysis of Digitally-enabled Movements”
Committee: Pamela Oliver (chair), Chaeyoon Lim, and James Montgomery
BA, Sociology, Minor: Political Science. 2007. Purdue University
BS, Computer Science and Mathematics. 2007. Purdue University
Areas of Specialization
Collective behavior and social movements, political sociology, communication and information technology,
Middle East and North Africa, quantitative methods, computational social science, textual analysis, social
network analysis.
Publications
Journal Articles
Alexander Hanna. 2013. “Computer-aided Content Analysis of Digitally-enabled Movements.”
Mobilization: An International Quarterly 18(4): 367-388.
Lead article
2014 Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award, ASA Mathematical Sociology Section
Leticia Bode, Alexander Hanna, JungHwan Yang, and Dhavan V. Shah. Forthcoming. “Online Political Communities in the 2010 Midterms: Candidate Networks, Citizen Clusters, and Strategic
Expression on Twitter.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Dhavan V. Shah, Alexander Hanna, Erik P. Bucy, Chris Wells, Vidal Quevedo. Forthcoming. “The
Power of Television Images in a Social Media Age: Linking Biobehavioral and Computational
Approaches.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Conference Papers with Proceedings
Alexander Hanna, Chris Wells, Peter Maurer, Dhavan V. Shah, Lewis Friedland, and Jörg Mattes.
2013. “Partisan Alignments and Political Polarization Online: A Computational Approach to
Understanding the French and U.S. Presidential Elections." In Politics, Election, and Data Workshop
(PLEAD). San Francisco, CA. November 1, 2013.
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Alexander Hanna, Ben Sayre, Leticia Bode, JungHwan Yang, and Dhavan V. Shah. 2011. “Mapping
the Political Twitterverse: Candidates and Their Followers in the Midterms." In Proceedings of
the Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. Barcelona, Spain. July 17-21,
2011.
Book Chapters
Dhavan V. Shah, Katy Culver, Alexander Hanna, Timothy Macafee, JungHwan Yang. Forthcoming.
“Everyday Political Talk Online.” Handbook of Digital Politics, eds. Stephen Coleman and Deen
Freelon.
Book Reviews
Alexander Hanna. 2012. The Second Palestinian Intifada: Civil Resistance. Mobilization: An International Quarterly 17(1): 103-104.
Work in Progress
Alexander Hanna. “Developing a System for the Automated Coding of Protest Event Data.”
Alexander Hanna. “Integrating Big Data into Social Science Practice.”
Blogs and Popular Media
Co-founder and contributor, Bad Hessian
Contributing editor, Mobilizing Ideas
(with Kevan Harris) “The Signal and the Noise in Middle East Elections.”
Foreign Policy, December 2013.
Featured (with Marc Smith) in “Visualizing the War on Women Debate.”
Foreign Policy, July/August 2012.
“Wisconsin and Egypt: A tale of two uprisings”
Isthmus, July 18, 2011.
“Gracious, Tahrir”
Newsweek Pakistan, April 4, 2011.
Invited Presentations
“Developing a System for the Automated Coding of Protest Event Data.”
Department of Information and Library Science, Indiana University. September 25, 2014.
Northwestern Institute for Complex Systems, Northwestern University. October 1, 2014.
“Teaching Big Data for Social Scientists.”
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Montreal, QC, Canada.
August 6-9, 2014.
“Computational Social Science.”
Methods of Sociological Inquiry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, April 29, 2014.
“Social Media in Elections: Political Behavior and Polarization." (with Leticia Bode)
Principles of Strategic Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison. October 10, 2011.
“New Media and the Arab Spring."
International Communications, University of Wisconsin-Madison. October 4, 2011.
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“Facebook and the April 6th Movement in Egypt."
The Sociological Enterprise, University of Wisconsin-Madison. November 16, 2010.
Conference Presentations
“Developing a System for the Automated Coding of Protest Event Data.”
Politics, Culture, and Society Training Seminar, Madison, WI. March 25, 2014.
Young Scholars in Social Movements conference. University of Notre Dame, May 2, 2014.
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Montreal, QC, Canada.
August 6-9, 2014.
Digital Crucible Conference. Dartmouth College. Oct 6-7, 2014.
“The Dynamics of the Political Media Field in Egypt."
Social Science History Association. Chicago, IL, November 21-24, 2013.
“Computer-aided Content Analysis of Digitally-enabled Movements."
American Sociological Association. New York, NY, August 9-13, 2013.
“Partisan Alignments and Political Polarization Online: A Computational Approach to Understanding the French and U.S. Presidential Elections." (with Chris Wells, Peter Maurer, Dhavan
V. Shah, Lewis Friedland, and Jörg Matthews)
Centre d’Etudes Comparées en Communication Politique and Publique, Paris, France. June
14-15, 2013.
“Revolutionary Making and Self-understanding: The Case of #Jan25 and Social Media Activism."
International Studies Association, San Diego, CA. April 2, 2012.
Politics, Culture, and Society Training Seminar, Madison, WI. March 13, 2012.
“Mapping the Political Twitterverse: Candidates and Their Followers in the Midterms."
Politics, Culture, and Society Training Seminar, Madison, WI. April 19, 2011.
“Facebook Mobilization in Egypt: The Origins of the April 6th Youth Movement."
Middle East Sociology graduate student workshop, American Sociological Association.
Denver, CO. August 17, 2012.
Communications Crossroads Graduate Conference, Madison, WI. 2010.
Grants and Awards
Major grants
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. 2011-Present.
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship. Summer 2010, academic year 2011 (declined).
Minor Grants
Vilas Travel Grant, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2015.
Department of Sociology Conference Travel Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2014.
Department of Sociology Small Grants Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2014.
Social Science History Association Tilly Travel Award. 2013.
International Studies Association Travel Award. 2013.
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Department of Sociology Conference Travel Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2013.
Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) Travel-Research-Engagement Grant. 2013 (declined).
Department of Sociology Small Grants Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2011.
Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Emerging Interfaces Award. 2011.
Graduate Student International Field Research Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Summer
2011.
Honors and Awards
Young Scholars in Social Movements Conference Invitee. 2014.
Distinction, Preliminary Examination in Comparative-Historical Sociology, University of WisconsinMadison. 2012.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (Honorable Mention). 2010.
Best Novel-in-Progress, Purdue Literary Awards. 2007.
Mortarboard Leadership Conference Invitee, Purdue University. 2004-2006.
Emily Mauzy Vogel Leadership Conference, Purdue University. 2004.
Teaching
Courses
Lecturer, Methods of Sociological Inquiry, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Spring 2014.
Grader/reader, Methods of Sociological Inquiry, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fall 2013.
Teaching Assistant, Survey of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Spring 2011.
Teaching Assistant, Ethnic Movements in the United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fall
2010.
Lab Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Computer Science, Purdue University. 2004-2007.
Teaching Assistant, Freshman Resources Seminar, Purdue University. Fall 2006.
Workshops
Instructor, “Introduction to Python for Social Scientists.” Indiana University, September 26, 2014.
Teaching Assistant, “Programming as a Research Method: Beginner’s Guide to Wranging Social
Media Data with Python” workshop. Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference. Montreal, QC, Canada. August 6-9, 2014.
Instructor, International Summer School on Social Network Analysis, National Research University
- Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia. August 15-22, 2013.
Instructor, Social Media and Democracy Tworkshops, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2012-2013.
Research
Co-chair (2012-2013) and member (2010-Present), Social Media and Democracy Research Group,
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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Research Assistant, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Spring
2014-Present.
Research Assistant, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Fall 2013.
Project Assistant, Wisconsin Center for Education Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2009-2010.
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University. 20072008.
Undergraduate Project Assistant, Department of Political Science, Purdue University. 2006.
NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates, Center for Reliability Engineering, University of
Maryland. Summer 2005.
Programmer, Synthetic Environment for Research and Simulation, Purdue University. 2004-2005.
Industry
Software Developer, Table XI Partners, LLC, Chicago, IL. 2008-2009.
Programmer/Technical Consultant, C-SPAN Archives, West Lafayette, IN. 2007-2008.
Software Development Intern, Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA. Summer 2006.
Level 2 Technical Support, Touch Support LLC, Lafayette, IN. 2006-2007.
Professional Service
Co-organizer, ASA Datathon. August 15-16, 2014.
Webmaster, ASA Collective Behavior and Social Movements section. 2013-Present.
Department of Sociology Website Committee, University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2009-Present.
Program Committee: #SMSociety15, #SMSociety14, SocInfo2014
Reviewer: American Behavioral Scientist; British Journal of Sociology; Information, Communication &
Society; International Journal of Public Opinion Research; Mobilization; Social Forces; Social Problems;
Social Thought and Research; Sociological Methods & Research
Professional Affiliations
American Sociological Association
Sections: Collective Behavior and Social Movements, Communications and Information Technology, Comparative-Historical, Middle East Sociology working group
American Federation of Teachers
AFT-Wisconsin (Vice President of Graduate Employees Council, 2011 - 2013)
Teaching Assistants’ Association, Local 3220 (Co-President, 2010 - 2012; Executive Board, 2009 2012)
Software skills
Statistical: R, Python (SciPy/NumPy/pandas), Stata, Excel
Programming: Python, Perl, PHP, C/C++, Java, SQL, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, LATEX, Bash
Parallel computing: Hadoop MapReduce (vanilla/Pig/streaming), Hive
Operating systems: Windows (XP/Vista/7), Mac OS X, Linux
Alexander Hanna
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Personal
US Citizen
Languages - English (native); Arabic (Heritage learner, ACTFL OPI: Intermediate High [Summer 2010]);
French (novice)
References
Pamela E. Oliver
Conway-Bascom Professor of Sociology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608-262-6829
[email protected]
Myra Marx Ferree
Alice H. Cook Professor of Sociology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608-263-5204
[email protected]
Chaeyoon Lim
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608-263-5146
[email protected]
Dhavan V. Shah
Louis A. & Mary E. Maier-Bascom Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison
5162 Vilas Communication Hall
821 University Ave.
Madison, WI 53706
608-262-0388
[email protected]
Last updated: January 29, 2015