Matt DeButts

I’m a fifth-year PhD student and Knight-Hennessy Scholar in the Department of Communication, advised by Professor Jennifer Pan. My research lies at the intersection of media, political communication, and authoritarian politics, focusing on how authoritarian states influence media production. Drawing on my background in journalism, I tend to integrate techniques from machine learning and natural language processing with qualitative insights from interviews and fieldwork. Prior to Stanford, I worked as a journalist in Beijing and earned an M.A. in China Studies from Peking University. I’m an avid writer and reader, and often look to books to make sense of my own experience and of the people around me.