Centers and Groups

Studies how behavior unfolds moment to moment and day to day, and how those small patterns add up to lasting change in health and well-being. Led by David Lydon-Staley, the lab focuses on substance use, emotion regulation, and curiosity across the lifespan, especially in adolescence.

Founded jointly by Penn’s Annenberg School and USC Annenberg, C3 helps scholars work across institutional, geographic, and disciplinary lines. Its fellowships, doctoral programs, symposia, and podcasts address issues from data privacy and media literacy to equity and the future of streaming.

A research center on communication and public policy, covering science and health communication, climate communication, and the institutions of democracy. Directed by Dolores Albarracín, it is home to FactCheck.org, the Annenberg Civics Knowledge Survey, and national surveys on public understanding of science and health.

Explores the social and creative sides of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, along with AI and spatial computing. Projects range from an immersive VR overdose-reversal training to community-created AR campaigns. Co-directed by Katerina Girginova and Kyle Cassidy.

The Collective for Advancing Multimodal Research Arts brings together scholars, artists, ethnographers, and educators to practice and teach media-based research. It produces the annual Screening Scholarship Media Festival, part academic conference and part film festival.

Produces critical, interdisciplinary research on global media and communication that connects scholarship to pressing public questions. Directed by Aswin Punathambekar, CARGC supports early-career scholars worldwide with fellowships from the undergraduate to the faculty level.

A Penn-wide hub for faculty and students whose research is rooted in creative practice: film, performance, sound, and visual media. Led by Deborah A. Thomas, it supports multimodal courses, visiting fellows, and community partnerships across Philadelphia.

Founded in 2019, CDCS supports critical, interdisciplinary scholarship on digital culture, technology, and society. Its working groups, colloquia, and symposia train new digital researchers and promote socially just design and use of technology.

Led by Sandra González-Bailón and Yphtach Lelkes, CIND brings together work at the intersection of political communication and computational social science. It studies how information networks help and harm democracy, from algorithmic curation and political segregation to collective action.

Using tools from neuroscience, social science, and network science to understand how people connect with, influence, and persuade one another, the lab applies this research to health and well-being, climate action, and equity, led by Emily Falk. 

Combines computer science, statistics, and social science to address real-world problems using large-scale digital data. Founded by Duncan Watts and run with Penn Engineering and Wharton, it works on media bias, team communication, and collective decision-making.

Partners with communities to understand how marketing, media, and messaging affect health, and builds culturally responsive communication programs to advance health equity. Recent work includes tailored anti-vaping and anti-smoking messages for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults.

Founded in 2003 and directed by David Eisenhower, IPS connects undergraduates with politics and public service through research and hands-on experience. Signature courses send students to presidential libraries and to the national party conventions.

A nonpartisan institute supported jointly with Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences that studies how citizens interact with the political world. Directed by Diana Mutz, its research covers public opinion, political psychology, and political communication.

Studies and supports democratic media systems that serve community needs, with a focus on the future of media, work, and democracy. Projects include the Pennsylvania Broadband Research Institute, research on Philadelphia’s local news ecosystem, and the COMPASS policy fellowship for doctoral students.

Led by Damon Centola, the group uses online experiments and computational models to study how behaviors, norms, and ideas spread through social networks. Its findings apply to public health, medical decision-making, collective intelligence, and political bias.

A nonpartisan lab co-founded in 2022 by Annenberg’s Yphtach Lelkes with Sean Westwood of Dartmouth and Shanto Iyengar of Stanford. It tracks partisan animosity, support for violating democratic norms, and support for political violence, and publishes its data free online. 

Studies how intersecting social identities, including race, gender, religion, and political ideology, shape how people communicate and how others communicate with them. Led by Deen Freelon, the lab uses computational methods and AI to study social media and politics.

Examines how youth of color navigate violence, grief, and joy online and offline, using qualitative and natural language processing methods. Led by Desmond Upton Patton, the lab moved from Columbia to Penn in 2022 and is affiliated with Annenberg and the School of Social Policy & Practice.

Led by Dolores Albarracín, the lab brings together experts in psychology, communication, and economics to understand what drives thoughts, attitudes, and behavior, especially in response to persuasive messages. It applies these findings to social and health problems.