Filippo Menczer earned his Laurea degree in physics from Sapienza University of Rome in 1990. After graduation, he continued his education at the University of California where he obtained his M.S. in computer science and Ph.D. in computer science and cognitive science in 1994 and 1998, respectively. He is a professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University (IU) Bloomington and director of the Observatory on Social Media. He has courtesy appointments in cognitive science and physics.
Menczer is an Association for Computer Machinery Distinguished scientist, a fellow of the Center for Computer-Mediated Communication, a senior research fellow of IU's Kinsey Institute, and a board member of the IU Network Science Institute. He previously served as division chair at the IU School of Informatics and Computing, director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, visiting scientist at Yahoo Research, a fellow of the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation in Torino, Italy, and fellow-at-large of the Santa Fe Institute. He has been the recipient of Fulbright, Rotary Foundation, and NATO fellowships, and a Career Award from the National Science Foundation.
His research interests span web and data science, computational social science, science of science, and modeling of complex information networks. In the last 10 years, his lab has led efforts to study online misinformation spread and to develop tools to detect and counter social media manipulation. This work has been covered in many U.S. and international news sources including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Economist, Guardian, Atlantic, Science, Nature, NPR, PBS, CNN, BBC, and Reuters. Menczer received multiple service awards and currently serves as associate editor of the Network Science journal and on the editorial boards of EPJ Data Science and PeerJ Computer Science.
Menczer received the IU Bicentennial Medal in July 2020 in recognition of his distinguished contributions to Indiana University.