Chris Danforth

Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics

Co-Director, Computational Story Lab

Associate Director, Vermont Complex Systems Center

Director, Vermont Advanced Computing Center

University of Vermont

Stacks Image 414798_414995
Stacks Image 414981
Stacks Image 414983
Stacks Image 415013
Stacks Image 415038
Stacks Image 415045
Stacks Image 415031

Research

Stacks Image 499349

Lived Experiences Measured Using Rings Study (LEMURS)

Science of Online Corpora, Knowledge, and Stories (SOCKS)

Recent funding from NSF, MRI, AMD, & MassMutual

“Inside the lab that’s quantifying happiness”
Profile of our research group in Outside Magazine

Research team & group publications

"The war in Ukraine has made Russian social-media users glum" The Economist

“Is Everybody Doing … OK? Let’s Ask Social Media”
Story on Hedonometer in New York Times

“Has Twitter just had its saddest fortnight ever?”
Story on Hedonometer in Nature

"Storywrangler: A massive exploratorium for sociolinguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, and political timelines using Twitter" Paper in Science Advances

“Instagram photos reveal predictive markers of depression”
Paper in EPJ Data Science, coverage by New York Times

“The emotional arcs of stories are dominated by six basic shapes” Paper in EPJ Data Science, coverage by The Atlantic

“Human language reveals a universal positivity bias”
Paper in PNAS, coverage by New York Times

Stacks Image 499462

Hedonometer: a population scale measure of daily happiness

Stacks Image 500327

StoryWrangler: A visual comparison of phrase popularity in 150 billion tweets

Recent Publications

  • 111. Say Their Names: Resurgence in the collective attention toward Black victims of fatal police violence following the death of George Floyd.
    H. H. Wu, R. J. Gallagher, T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, B. F. Welles, R. Harp, P. S. Dodds, C. M. Danforth.
    PLOS ONE. 2023.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 503281
  • 110. Ousiometrics and Telegnomics: The essence of meaning conforms to a two-dimensional powerful-weak and dangerous-safe framework with diverse corpora presenting a safety bias.
    P. S. Dodds, T. Alshaabi, M. I. Fudolig, J. W. Zimmerman, J. Lovato, S. Beaulieu, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth.
    In Review. 2023.
    [pdf] [abstract] [online appendix] [thread]
    Stacks Image 503290
  • 109. A decomposition of book structure through ousiometric fluctuations in cumulative word-time.
    M. Fudolig, T. Alshaabi, K. Cramer, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 2023.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arxiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 503299
  • 108. Nature Exposure is Associated With Reduced Smartphone Use.
    K. Minor, K. L. Glavind, A. J. Schwartz, C. M. Danforth, S. Lehmann, A. Bjerre-Nielsen.
    Environment and Behavior. 2023.
    [pdf] [journal url] [thread] [press]
    Stacks Image 503308
  • 107. An assessment of measuring local levels of homelessness through proxy social media signals.
    Y. M. Bird, S. E. Grobe, M. V. Arnold, S. P. Rogers, M. I. Fudolig, J. W. Zimmerman, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    In Review. 2023.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [thread] [press]
    Stacks Image 503317
  • 106. Curating corpora with classifiers: A case study of clean energy sentiment online.
    M. V. Arnold, P. S. Dodds, C. M. Danforth.
    In Review. 2023.
    [pdf] [arXiv]
    Stacks Image 503326
  • 105. Sentiment analysis of medical record notes for lung cancer patients at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
    D. Elbers, J. La, J. R Minot, R. E. Gramling, M. T. Brophy, N. V. Do, N. Fillmore, P. S. Dodds, C. M. Danforth.
    PLOS ONE. 2023.
    [pdf] [journal url]
    Stacks Image 503335
  • 104. Expecting the Unexpected: Predicting Panic Attacks from Mood and Twitter.
    E. W. McGinnis, S. Lunna, I. Berman, S. Bagdon, G. Lewis, M. V. Arnold, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds, M. Price, W. E. Copeland, R. S. McGinnis.
    In Review. 2023.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [press]
    Stacks Image 503344
  • 103. Discovering Digital Biomarkers of Panic Attack Risk in Consumer Wearables Data.
    E. W. McGinnis, S. Lunna, I. Berman, B. Loftness, S. Bagdon, C. M. Danforth, M. Price, W. E. Copeland, R. S. McGinnis.
    In Review. 2023.
    [pdf] [arXiv]
    Stacks Image 503353
  • 102. Computational Paremiology: Charting the temporal, ecological dynamics of proverb use in books, news articles, and tweets.
    E. Davis, C. M. Danforth, W. Mieder, P. S. Dodds.
    Digital Humanities Quarterly. In Press. 2023.
    [pdf] [arXiv]
    Stacks Image 503364
  • 101. Twitter misogyny associated with Hillary Clinton increased throughout the 2016 U.S. election campaign.
    M. Weaving, T. Alshaabi, M. V. Arnold, K. Blake, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds, N. Haslam, C. Fine.
    Scientific Reports. 2023.
    [pdf] [journal url] [thread]
    Stacks Image 503373
  • 100. Park visitation and walkshed demographics in the United States.
    K. Linnell, M. Fudolig, L. Bloomfield, T. H. Ricketts, J. P. M. O'Neil-Dunne, P. S. Dodds, C. M. Danforth.
    In Review. 2023.
    [pdf] [arXiv]
    Stacks Image 503382
  • 99. Spatial changes in park visitation at the onset of the pandemic.
    K. Linnell, M. Fudolig, A. Schwartz, T. H. Ricketts, J. P. M. O'Neil-Dunne, P. S. Dodds, C. M. Danforth.
    PLOS Global Health. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arxiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 503391
  • 98. Allotaxonometry and rank-turbulence divergence:
    A universal instrument for comparing complex systems.
    P. S. Dodds, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, D. R. Dewhurst, T. J. Gray, M. R. Frank, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth.
    In Review. 2022.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [online appendix] [code] [thread]
    Stacks Image 503400
  • 97. Fame and Ultrafame: Measuring and comparing daily levels of 'being talked about' for United States' presidents, their rivals, God, countries, and K-pop.
    P. S. Dodds, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, D. R. Dewhurst, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth.
    Journal of Quantitative Description. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [thread] [online appendix]
    Stacks Image 503409
  • 96. Quantifying Changes in the Language Used Around Mental Health on Twitter Over 10 Years: Observational Study.
    A. M. Stupinski, T. Alshaabi, M. V. Arnold, J. R. Minot, M. Price, P. S. Dodds, C. M. Danforth.
    Journal of Medical Internet Research: Mental Health. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502452
  • 95. Augmenting semantic lexicons using word embeddings and transfer learning.
    T. Alshaabi, C. V. Oort, M. Fudolig, M. V. Arnold, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502461
  • 94. Gauging the happiness benefit of US urban parks through Twitter.
    A. J. Schwartz, P. S. Dodds, J. P. M. O’Neil-Dunne, T. H. Ricketts, C. M. Danforth.
    PLOS ONE. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [online appendix] [thread] [blog] [press]
    Stacks Image 502470
  • 93. Sentiment and structure in word co-occurrence networks on Twitter.
    M. I. Fudolig, T. Alshaabi, M. V. Arnold, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    Applied Network Science. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502479
  • 92. Blending search queries with social media data to improve forecasts of economic indicators.
    Y. Li, A. Ahani, H. Zhan, K. Foley, T. Alshaabi, K. Linnell, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds, A. Fox.
    arXiv. 2022.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502488
  • 91. Sirius: A mutual information network tool for exploratory visualization of mixed data
    J. L. Adams, T. F. DeLuca, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds, Y. Zheng, K. Anastasakis, B. Choi, A. Min, M. B. Bessey.
    arXiv. 2022.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [thread] [code]
    Stacks Image 502497
  • 90. Interpretable bias mitigation for textual data: Reducing gender bias in patient notes while maintaining classification performance.
    J. R. Minot, N. Cheney, M. Maier, D. C. Elbers, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    ACM Transactions on Computing for Health Care. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502506
  • 89. Ecological and Coevolutionary Dynamics in Modern Markets Yield Nonstationarity in Market Efficiencies.
    C. M. Van Oort, J. H Ring, D. R. Dewhurst, C. M. Danforth, B. F. Tivnan.
    Complexity. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url]
    Stacks Image 502515
  • 88. Doomscrolling during COVID-19: The negative association between daily social and traditional media consumption and mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
    M. Price, A. C. Legrand, Z. M. F. Brier, K. van Stolk-Cooke, K. Peck, P. S. Dodds, Z. W. Adams, C. M. Danforth.
    Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. 2022.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv]
    Stacks Image 502524
  • 87. Storywrangler: A massive exploratorium for
    sociolinguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, and political timelines using Twitter.
    T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, M. V. Arnold, J. R. Minot, D. R. Dewhurst, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    Science Advances. 2021.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [appendix] [online visualization] [thread] [press]
    Stacks Image 502396
  • 86. Probability-turbulence divergence: A tunable allotaxonometric instrument for comparing heavy-tailed categorical distributions.
    P. S. Dodds, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, D. R. Dewhurst, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth.
    arXiv. 2021.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [online appendix] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502405
  • 85. The incel lexicon: Deciphering the emergent cryptolect of a global misogynistic community.
    K. Gothard, D. R. Dewhurst, J. R. Minot, J. L. Adams, M. V. Arnold, T. Alshaabi, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    arXiv. 2021.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502414
  • 84. Generalized Word Shift Graphs: A Method for Visualizing and Explaining Pairwise Comparisons Between Texts.
    R. J. Gallagher, M. R. Frank, L. Mitchell, A. J. Schwartz, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth, P. S. Dodds.
    EPJ Data Science. 2021.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [code] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502423
  • 83. Computational timeline reconstruction of the stories surrounding Trump: Story turbulence, narrative control, and collective chronopathy.
    P. S. Dodds, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth.
    PLOS ONE. 2021.
    [pdf] [journal url] [arXiv] [online appendix] [thread] [press]
    Stacks Image 502432
  • 82. Long-term word frequency dynamics derived from Twitter are corrupted: A bespoke approach to detecting and removing pathologies in ensembles of time series.
    P. S. Dodds, J. R. Minot, M. V. Arnold, T. Alshaabi, J. L. Adams, D. R. Dewhurst, A. J. Reagan, C. M. Danforth.
    arXiv. 2021.
    [pdf] [arXiv] [thread]
    Stacks Image 502441

Full publication list

Teaching

Video lectures for recent course on Nonlinear Dynamics available for free on YouTube

2022 Kroepsch-Maurice Excellence in Teaching Award

Applied Mathematics classes taught at UVM include Linear Algebra, Numerical Analysis, Nonlinear Dynamics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Data Ethics

We now offer an undergraduate degree in Data Science, as well as both MS and PhD degrees in Complex Systems & Data Science

Stacks Image 499363

Tweets