Hanna Sistek

Hanna Sistek is a political scientist whose research examines how digital technologies reshape democratic discourse and political accountability. Her work explores how fragmented media environments, affective polarization, and new information technologies influence incentives for honesty in politics. At the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, she is developing ConvoLab, an AI-powered dialogue coach designed to help people practice difficult political conversations. It uses two AI agents: one takes on the role of a conversation partner and the other acts as a coach, providing feedback and nudges based on partisan-bridging principles. The project translates insights from political communication research into practical tools for strengthening civil discourse. 

Hanna’s broader research examines political disinformation, information literacy, and the social and technological conditions that shape how citizens evaluate political information. Her work combines survey experiments, interviews, and computational and statistical analyses to study how digital communication environments influence democratic accountability and public reasoning. Before entering academia, she worked as an international journalist, reporting from 19 countries across five continents for outlets including Al Jazeera, Svenska Dagbladet, and Amnesty Press, and was an Innovation Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from Purdue University, a journalism degree from the University of Gothenburg, and a B.S. in Physical Therapy from Lund University.