Dr Mehwish Nasim’s research focuses on information warfare – particularly as it is waged through social media – and developing new tools to detect fake news and misinformation and limit their spread.

Her approach combines methods from a range of fields including computer science, network analysis and natural language processing, to social sciences and psychology and she was recently named Women in Tech Australia's Shining star in AI, Robotics and Data Analytics for 2023.

In the latest podcast episode of Research on the Record, Dr Nasim talks about the patterns she’s identified from analysing vast volumes of data from social media.

The Lecturer in Computer Science reveals the rapidly escalating trend of fake news and how it has evolved along with real world events, from the 2020 U.S. Presidential elections to the New South Wales bushfire crisis, to the COVID-19 pandemic – and makes her case as to why the government needs to take misinformation and disinformation on social media seriously as a cyber security threat.

She also joins the series’ conversation about gender equity, discussing her different experiences of various institutions nationally and overseas, sharing some of the tips she’s learned from navigating the world of higher degree research - and explaining why PhD candidates in Australia need better support.