Jana Lasser is a Professor for Data Analysis at the University of Graz and Associate Faculty at CSH.

Her research interests focus on emergent phenomena in complex social systems, employing methods from machine learning, data science, natural language processing, and computational and statistical modeling. Her current research includes the effectiveness of counterspeech strategies, the spread of misinformation on social media platforms, and the impact of social media recommendation algorithms on societal outcomes.

Before Jana changed to Graz University of Technology in April 2021, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Section for Science of Complex Systems at the Medical University of Vienna and the Complexity Science Hub from January 2020 to March 2021. Jana studied physics at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen and graduated with an analysis and modeling of transport networks in nature. In her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Jana combined numerical simulations, experiments and field research to uncover the driving mechanism of hexagonal crust patterns in salt deserts. She also spearheaded the effort to develop and implement the Data Literacy teaching curriculum at her university.

Besides her research work, Jana is an active proponent of open science practices and an open knowledge fellow of the Wikimedia foundation.