PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil

Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil is a Cornell information science professor whose work uses online language to study human social behavior. He earned a computer science PhD at Cornell in 2012 and joined Stanford’s SNAP group for postdoctoral studies in August 2012. His work includes computational models of politeness, language signals that predict betrayal in online Diplomacy games, and ConvoKit, an open-source conversation-analysis toolkit. In 2025, he shared the ICWSM Test of Time Award for his research on antisocial behavior in online communities. As of October 2026, he leads TrAuSt’s experimental and evaluation infrastructure for AI mediators and assistants at Cornell.

Timeline

  1. 2012

    A Cornell computer science PhD

    He earns a computer science PhD at Cornell in 2012.

  2. August 2012

    Stanford postdoctoral studies

    He joins Stanford’s SNAP group for postdoctoral studies in August 2012.

  3. 2013

    Computing linguistic politeness

    In 2013, he and four coauthors introduce a computational framework for identifying linguistic politeness. Their classifier uses domain-independent lexical and syntactic features, approaches human performance, and works across domains.

  4. 2015

    Language signals before betrayal

    In 2015, he is an assistant professor of information science at Cornell and coauthors a study of 145,000 messages from 249 online Diplomacy games. The analysis finds that players who later betray allies become more positive and less polite just before betrayal.

  5. 2018

    An NSF CAREER Award

    In 2018, he receives the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER).

  6. 2020

    ConvoKit conversation toolkit

    In 2020, he coauthors ConvoKit, an open-source toolkit for analyzing conversations and social interactions. It provides a unified framework for conversational data and a large collection of conversational datasets.

  7. June 2025

    ICWSM Test of Time Award

    In June 2025, ICWSM gives him the Test of Time Award for his 2015 paper, “Antisocial Behavior in Online Discussion Communities.” He shares the award with coauthors Justin Cheng and Jure Leskovec.

  8. As of October 2026

    AI mediation and evaluation at Cornell

    As of October 2026, he is a professor of information science at Cornell, where his research aims to develop computational frameworks for studying human social behavior through online language data. Through TrAuSt, he leads the experimental and evaluation infrastructure and is responsible for open-source tools for AI mediators and assistants that support civic discourse.

Career

  1. NowCornell UniversityAssistant Professor of Information Science
  2. From 2012Stanford UniversityPostdoctoral researcher

Education

  1. 2012Cornell UniversityPhD

From the biography.

  1. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes Cornell University. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Cornell University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Cornell University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Cornell University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Lillian Lee: My Students cs.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. News – MPI SWS mpi-sws.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. SNAP: Latest news snap-sentiment.stanford.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. [1306.6078] A Computational Approach to Politeness with Application to Social Factors arxiv.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Language analysis predicts a coming betrayal | Cornell Chronicle news.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil | Department of Computer Science | Cornell Bowers cs.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. ConvoKit: A Toolkit for the Analysis of Conversations - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil receives ICWSM Test of Time Award | Department of Computer Science | Cornell Bowers cs.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. Team — TrAuSt traust.infosci.cornell.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.