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Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut, where she conducts research in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab. She has published and presented her research in both communication and information science, working at the intersection of both fields. She also teaches courses and seminars on communication technology, computer-mediated communication and social media.
Her research focuses on the use and effects of using social media to share information. In recent years, this focus has turned primarily to understanding and mitigating misinformation online through experiments that test various literacy interventions and interface design features. She also has a line of research focusing on the use of social media in science communication, including a recently funded project on examining women in STEM on TikTok.
In 2021, she was a visiting Fulbright Research Fellow at the Universität Duisburg-Essen, in the Department of Computer Science and Applied Cognitive Science. There she launched a new line of research investigating algorithmic literacy of social media users in both the US and Germany; a collaboration that continues with her overseas research network.
In addition to the work within academia, she seizes opportunities to bring her work to the public, through public fora, podcast interviews, and community partnerships. She looks for connections across her work, such as the partnership she developed between her service learning social media course and the Connecticut Science Center.
Anne is originally from Stuttgart, Germany, but grew up mostly in the US, where she still resides. She travels between the countries frequently, as most of her family remains in Germany. This “third culture” experience is what draws her to the connections between nations and their people, and she is always looking to learn more perspectives and languages.