MELINA
MUCH

I am a postdoctoral fellow for NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics and a Siegel Research Fellow for the Siegel Family Endowment. I attained my PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine in 2024. I was also a visiting Ph.D. student with the Alvarez Lab at California Institute of Technology.

I specialize in the intersection of political psychology, survey methodologies, and social media in the American context. In addition, I work on questions of identity politics and statistical methodologies to study intersectionality. I have also worked on questions of gender-based mobilization on social media during the #MeToo era and in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson.

My latest project centers on what I call gendered media spaces — digital information environments that form around masculine and feminine audience characteristics and preferences, leading men and women to be exposed to different sorts of political content. I show particularly how in the podcast ecosystem, this leads to tangible impacts on vote choice and political attitudes.

I am available for media commentary and public writing on these topics. Outside of work, I'm a former collegiate soccer player, avid lifter, mountain biker, and Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast. I enjoy long talks about women's soccer and anything San Diego (my hometown).