PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Fernando P. Santos

Fernando P. Santos is a researcher in multi-agent AI whose work studies how learning agents and recommendation systems shape cooperation, fairness and public debate. He earned an MSc in computer science at Instituto Superior Técnico, completed a PhD there in 2018, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton. His research links recommendation algorithms with online polarization and information cocoons, and examines fair cooperation and prediction in games. As of October 2026, he is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he leads the Prosocial Dynamics Lab and serves as scientific lab manager of the Civic AI Lab.

Timeline

  1. 2013–2018

    An IST master's and PhD

    He earns an MSc in Computer Science at Instituto Superior Técnico in 2013 and completes a PhD in Computer Science and Engineering there in 2018. His dissertation on reputations and cooperation wins IFAAMAS's 2018 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award.

  2. By 2021

    A Princeton postdoctoral fellowship

    By 2021, he is a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton, working under Simon A. Levin and supported by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Fellowship.

  3. 2021

    Link recommendations and polarization

    In 2021, he coauthors a PNAS study showing that links recommended between users with similar network neighbors can intensify opinion polarization by creating well-defined communities.

  4. 2023

    Breaking information cocoons

    In 2023, he publishes the Nature Machine Intelligence News & Views “How to break information cocoons,” which describes recommendation-driven information flows and ways to expose users to diverse content. He is selected for the AAAI-23 New Faculty Highlights program.

  5. 2024

    Fair cooperation at IJCAI

    In 2024, he and M. Smit publish “Learning Fair Cooperation in Mixed-Motive Games with Indirect Reciprocity” at IJCAI.

  6. 2025

    Performative prediction in games

    In 2025, he coauthors “Performative Prediction on Games and Mechanism Design,” published in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research, volume 258.

  7. February 2026

    Tracking discriminatory discourse

    In February 2026, he joins a University of Amsterdam SIAS team that introduces an open-source pipeline combining keyword analysis, sentiment analysis, LLM classification and time-series methods to track discriminatory discourse.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor in Amsterdam

    As of October 2026, he is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam’s Informatics Institute. In SIAS, he leads the Prosocial Dynamics Lab and serves as scientific lab manager of the Civic AI Lab; his research studies behavioral dynamics in adaptive learning agents and aims to design prosocial, fair AI.

Career

  1. NowUniversity of AmsterdamAssociate Professor
  2. Princeton UniversityPostdoctoral research fellow

Education

  1. 2018Instituto Superior TécnicoPhD
  2. 2013Instituto Superior TécnicoMSc

From the biography.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Amsterdam. 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.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes University of Amsterdam. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Amsterdam. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Amsterdam. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Fernando P. Santos yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Fernando P. Santos | JSMF Postdoctoral Fellow | Princeton University web.tecnico.ulisboa.pt. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Fernando P. Santos fp-santos.github.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Link recommendation algorithms and dynamics of polarization in online social networks - PMC pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. How to break information cocoons | Nature Machine Intelligence nature.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Dr. F.P. (Fernando) Pascoal Dos Santos - University of Amsterdam uva.nl. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. How politics, media and online platforms shape discriminatory climates in the Netherlands - Informatics Institute - University of Amsterdam ivi.uva.nl. Checked 21 October 2026.