Welcome!

I'm a third year PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania in the Computer and Information Science department. I am grateful to be advised by Professor Danaé Metaxa as a member of Penn HCI.


In my research, I design controlled, large-scale experiments to study how AI systems shape information access and exposure. I also build systems that empower individuals to exert greater control over their online experiences in the face of algorithmic personalization. My aim is to inform the design of algorithmic systems that are more transparent, equitable, and accountable to their users.


Before starting my PhD, I worked as a software engineer in the tech industry on data infrastructure, first at Sisu Data, then at Apple. I earned an MS in Computer Science and a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. My work has been generously supported by an AWS gift for research in Trustworthy AI.

News

• April 2025: Attending CHI News Futures Workshop in Yokohama, Japan to present “Perceiving Politics on TikTok A User-Centered Approach to Understanding Political Content on TikTok”.

• November 2024: I will be attending CSCW in San Jose, Costa Rica to present our work, “Lower Quantity, Higher Quality Auditing News Content and User Perceptions on Twitter/X Algorithmic versus Chronological Timelines”.

• August 2024: My paper with Shengchun Huang won First Place Faculty Paper, Political Communication Division at Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)!

• July 2024: I went to IC2S2 at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania to present work on auditing social media news feeds.

Research

Resume CV

CV

Contact

stephtw [at] seas.upenn.edu

Google Scholar

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