Miller Center Director & Social Media and Democracy Research Hub, Rutgers Democracy Lab (RDL) New Brunswick

Position description

The Rutgers Democracy Lab (RDL) was established through a transformative gift received in November 2024. Its mission is to serve as a vibrant hub for civic engagement and a collaborative workshop for studying, analyzing, and addressing the challenges and opportunities of contemporary democracy.

RDL embodies a bold commitment to equip students with the tools and knowledge to engage with, strengthen, and sustain democracy for future generations. The Lab also seeks to examine emerging threats, such as the influence of social media, and explore their profound impact on democratic processes.

As a central component of the RDL, the Social Media and Democracy Research Hub will provide students, faculty, and staff with data and analysis to complement programs and research across the university. The Hub’s mission is to examine how social media use relates to civic engagement and democratic participation, including the pervasive influence of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

By drawing on multidisciplinary expertise at Rutgers and building a national network of experts across technology, political science, journalism, and public policy, the Hub aims to tackle challenges facing American democracy. Through rigorous research and collaboration with community members and practitioners, the Hub will generate insights with national impact, contributing to the broader understanding of democracy’s evolution in the digital age. The Hub’s findings will be positioned to inform policymakers, technology leaders, law enforcement, and the public discourse, ensuring that research drives actionable change.

Posting Summary

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey is seeking a Miller Center Director & Social Media and Democracy Research Hub, Rutgers Democracy Lab (RDL) New Brunswick within the Eagleton Institute of Politics. This position directly supervises the Associate Director and Administrative Support Staff positions at the Research Hub, as well as a Graduate Assistant and students. Reports to the Administrative and Academic Directors of RDL and reports up to the Director of Eagleton.

The mission of the Miller Center is to assist vulnerable communities to enhance their safety and standing in society by improving their relationships with law enforcement, with other government agencies and with other vulnerable communities. The Center identifies and implements best practices in policing, and researching and calling attention to extremism and hate speech as they spread across social media platforms and erupt in real-world acts of violence.

Key Goals:

• Informing Democratic Practice: promote a civic-minded community informed by research on how digital media and emerging technologies shape political behavior. By better understanding online discourse, the Hub seeks to rebuild trust and strengthen democratic participation at every level.
• Student Engagement and Training: Put students at the heart of research. Students from all disciplines will not only study democracy’s challenges and the impact of social media on society but also apply their training in practical settings. The Hub will offer hands-on learning, enabling students to work alongside faculty, policy experts, and tech industry leaders on real-world democratic issues.
• Evidence-Based Solutions: The Hub will explore and test ideas-such as interventions to counter false information or strategies to increase youth civic engagement-and develop recommendations grounded in data. Findings will be disseminated to inform policymakers, educators, and social media platforms about effectives ways to bolster democracy in the digital age.

Key Research Areas:

• Measuring Social Media Trends and Civic Participation: Examining how online discourse influences voter behavior, political engagement, and trust in democratic institutions.
• The Role of Generative AI, Polarization, and Misinformation in Democracy: Analyzing how emerging technologies contribute to the spread of false information, political division, and public trust in media.
• Platform Design, Policies, and Civic Engagement: Investigating how social media platforms’ algorithms, moderation policies, and content recommendation systems shape civic participation and democratic discourse.

Among the key duties of the position are the following:

• Trains students, generates research that captures national attention, influences public policy, and advances democratic resilience in the digital era.
• Leads Miller and RDL research, student training, and policy engagement efforts.
• Oversees interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of social media, democracy, and civic engagement, ensuring the Hub contributes cutting edge insights into digital political discourse.
• Directs research initiatives, developing partnerships with industry and policymakers.
• Secures external funding.
• Shapes the national conversation about digital media’s role in democratic renewal.
• Creates a very visible and relevant research hub, engaging faculty, staff, and students at all Rutgers campuses.
• Oversees activities of the Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience, including examination of the role of law enforcement in American democracy and programming to educate and train law enforcement in threats and challenges presented by social media.
• Creates an imprint on democratic learning and civic engagement among young adults.
• Builds and leads high-performing teams.
• Drives innovation within a major public university while fostering interdisciplinary connectivity to advance the mission and scope of RDL.
• Connects to the world outside of Rutgers at local, state, and national levels.
• Participates in Institute-wide and/or cross-team projects.
• Develops and implements a strategic vision for the Hub, ensuring its research and training programs align with the mission of the RDL.
• Builds interdisciplinary collaborations across Rutgers and with external partners, including policymakers, tech companies, and civic organizations.
• Publishes research findings in academic journals, policy reports, and public facing outlets to maximize impact.
• Establishes partnerships with social media platforms, advocacy groups, think tanks, and public institutions to advance digital democracy research.
• Serves as key representative of the Hub at conferences, policy roundtables, and academic forums.
• Organizes events at Rutgers to highlight the work of the research hub and that of key partners in the field.
• Develops RDL courses and workshops on social media, technology, and democracy, integrating research with classroom learning. 
• Provides students with the skills needed to analyze digital political behavior and understand the role of technology in shaping civic life.
• Designs courses that bridge theory with applied research.

Application instructions

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