Alex Newhouse

Alex Newhouse

Computational Political Scientist

Alex Newhouse — computational political scientist at CU Boulder, studying political violence and online extremism.

About

I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in computational analysis of political violence and extremism. My research develops and applies transformer-based NLP, network analysis, and time-series causal inference to understand how online communities translate into offline political action. I am also committed to teaching and mentoring undergraduates, drawing on my own liberal arts education at Middlebury College to make computational methods accessible and engaging for students across disciplines.

Key Experience:

  • Research Fellow, National Humanities Alliance Humanities Workforce Program
  • Humane Studies Fellow, Institute for Humane Studies (2025-Present)
  • Investigative Consultant to the House Select Committee on January 6th
  • Deputy Director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism & Counterterrorism
  • Principal Investigator on $1.38M in externally funded grants
  • Instructor of Record at Middlebury College and MIIS

Research Expertise

Methods:

  • Machine Learning & NLP
  • Social Network Analysis
  • Causal Inference
  • Data Science & Visualization

Substantive Areas:

  • Political Violence & Extremism
  • Digital Platform Research
  • Technology & Society
  • Computational Social Science

Impact

3 courses as instructor of record; 4 as teaching assistant | 52 students mentored | $1.38M in externally funded grants (PI) | 276K article views


Media Recognition

Research and expertise featured in major outlets including: Washington PostNew York TimesNPRBBCPoliticoWiredBloombergMeet the PressViceAxiosFiveThirtyEightProPublicaDenver7


Current Projects

Dissertation Research: Investigating social processes and collective mobilization in the online extreme right using NLP, network analysis, and causal inference

COVID-19 Visual Politics: Analyzing partisan differences in pandemic media coverage using computer vision and text analysis

Gaming & Extremism: Multi-platform investigation of recruitment and radicalization in digital gaming environments


Contact: alex.newhouse@colorado.edu