IDeaS Center Fall 2025 Seminar Series
Tuesday, December 2, 2025, 4:00pm – 5:00pm Room TCS 358 - Hybrid Event
Daniel Silverman
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology
Understanding Misinformation in Contemporary War: From Iraq and Syria to Russia and Ukraine and Beyond
Abstract: This presentation will provide an overview of the phenomenon of mis- and disinformation in modern armed conflict, drawing on Dr. Silverman's recent book Seeing is Disbelieving: Why People Believe Misinformation in War, and When They Know Better and other relevant work. Dr. Silverman will discuss the conceptual landscape of wartime misinformation, the factors that drive people to believe and disbelieve it, and some promising strategies for countering the phenomenon and amplifying truth in conflict. Dr. Silverman will also briefly discuss his ongoing work on hate and prejudice in conflict.
Bio: Daniel Silverman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST) at Carnegie Mellon University, where he focuses on international security, political psychology, and Middle East politics. He is particularly interested in the psychological factors – including the biases and misperceptions – that drive conflicts, and how they can be mitigated or leveraged to promote peace. His first book on misinformation and who believes it in war came out with Cambridge University Press in late 2024, and his work has also appeared in leading political science journals such as International Organization and public-facing outlets such as Foreign Affairs. He earned his Ph.D. and Master's at The Ohio State University and his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania.
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The IDeaS Seminar series are held during Spring and Fall semesters.
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**Unless noted all seminars will be held virtually via Zoom. Additional talk details and registration links will be posted online prior to seminar dates. Email centerforideas@andrew.cmu.edu to be added to the mailing list.
Upcoming Seminars:
IDeaS Spring 2026 Seminar Series:
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
Sophia Choukas-Bradley, Ph.D.
Tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Chinmayi Sharma
Associate Professor of Law at Forham Law School
March 10, 2026
Ethan Zuckerman
Associate Professor, Director of the Digital Public Infrastructure Initiative at UMass Amherst
March 24, 2026
Brandy Aven, PhD
Associate Professor in Organizational Theory, Strategy, and Entrepreneurship, Carnegie Mellon University
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Hans W. A. Hanley
Meta Research Scientist
Additional talk details and registration links will be posted online prior to seminar dates.
Past Seminar Presenters
Rachel Kuo
Asst. Professor at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison in the Dept. of Gender and Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies Title: Democracy and Technology Under the Shadow of Empire -11/11/2025
Victor Pickard
C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the Annenberg School for Communication Talk Title: The Present and Future of U.S. Journalism on 10/28/2025
Making correction visible: The value of observed correction to reduce misperceptions on social media
Computational and Design Approaches for Combating Problematic Online Information
Juliana Schroeder - The Psychology of Reading "Mind" During Conversation
Katie Harbath - Tech and elections - A brief history of how we got here and where we go next
Sam Gregory - Deepfakes: Critical questions on current problems and emerging ‘solutions'
Ananya Sen - Quantifying the User Value of Social Media Data
Daniyar Serikov - Distortions in the Kazakh Media Landscape
Jessica Dawson - The Surveillance App Economy and the National Security Risk
Joshua Tucker - The (Surprisingly?) Limited Impact of Russia's Election Interference on Twitter in the 2016 US Election
Yan Leng Ph.D. - Analysis of misinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak in China: cultural, social and political entanglements
