Lei Cao is a doctoral student at USC Annenberg. Her research interests span the broad fields of computational social science. She is particularly interested in online communities and social networks, such as combating harmful content on social media and how social networks shape human behaviors. She is also interested in developing theories on social and information dynamics in the era of Generative AI and integrating AI breakthroughs into society-facing research.

Prior to joining Annenberg, she received her MS in Applied Data Science from USC. Read more about Cao on her website. Connect with her via email or on X @leicao_usc