Disinformation, Propaganda & Soft Power Research -laboratorio (DPS-Lab)

BSc and MSc Åbo Akademi, Finland

Research Interests: South Korean and North Korean relations, frozen conflicts, propaganda, disinformation, political communications and media of China and Japan, East Asian popular culture, democracy and democratization

Languages: Fluent in English, Swedish, Finnish, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Korean

Methodologies: Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics

Programming: C, Python, R

Tools: MAXQDA

M.Soc.Sci University of Tampere, Finland | Charles University, Czech Republic | Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea

Research Interests: cognitive warfare, intelligence studies, security studies,  arctic studies, strategic cultures, civilian and military crisis management, misinformation, propaganda, technoscientific futures and imaginaries, space politics, political history of Russia and the Soviet Union

Languages: Finnish, English, Swedish, French, German, Czech, Korean  

Methodologies: focus on qualitative and mixed method approaches. Experience in risk analysis and future scenarios. 

Programming: C#

Tools: ATLAS.ti

Work experience: Crisis Management Centre Finland, Finnish Defence Forces, UNICEF Finland

Multiple BSc degrees Rutgers University | MSc LUT University

Research Interests: US-Russia space relations, strategic communications, propaganda, disinformation, Russia and the Soviet Union

Languages: English, Russian, Spanish, Finnish

Methodologies: Business Analytics, Sentiment Analysis, Large Language Models (LLMs)

Programming: R, SQL

Work experience: NASA, insurance companies

M.Soc.Sci LUT University, Finland

Research Interests: the role of social robotics and artificial intelligence in environmental and climate communication. How emerging technologies such as social robots and AI systems shape public understanding, awareness, and engagement with sustainability and climate change.

Languages: English, Urdu

Methodologies: Qualitative and quantitative research methods, including content analysis and survey design.

Tools: SPSS, NVivo, Stata

MSc LUT University, Finland | Master of Social Science University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh

Research Interests: corporate sustainability reporting; sustainability communication; strategic environmental communication; EU policy; digital media environments, public trust, social innovations, social inclusion, and communication in Bangladesh and the Global South.

Languages: English, Bengali, Finnish

Methodologies: development of AI-assisted qualitative analysis, Qualitative content analysis, framing analysis, thematic analysis, survey design, mixed-method research.

Tools: NVivo, SPSS, AI-assisted qualitative analysis tools, Stata

MSc African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Rwanda | LUT University, Finland

Research Interests: computer vision, Computational Social Science, climate-related startups, propaganda, social innovation, Africa

Languages: English, French, Kinyarwanda

Methodologies: quantitative and qualitative research, statistical analysis, actuarial science, machine learning, text analysis (NLP)

Programming: python (pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow), R, Julia, SQL

Tools: Jupyter Notebook, VS Studio, PowerBI, Tableau

Work experience: World Bank, ILO (International Labor Organization), LadyAgri Impact Investment

BSc Humboldt University, Germany | MSc Åbo Akademi, Finland

Research Interests: ecofeminism, propaganda, sustainability, Singapore

Languages: German, English, Chinese, Burmese, French, Swahili, Japanese, Malay

Methodologies: quantitative research, statistics

Tools: SPSS, R

Work experience: multiple years of experience as a research assistant in the field of psychology, African history, and statistical evaluation

Recent publications:

• Bröder, C., Blüthmann, I., Grimm, A.-L., & Watermann, R. (2022). Ergebnisse der berlinweiten Befragung der Bachelor-Lehramtsstudierenden zum Übergang in den Lehramtsmaster. Freie Universität Berlin.
• Grimm, A. L. (2022). Trauma and Stigma: Myanmar Refugee Trauma, and German Attitudes Towards Refugees [Master’s Thesis]. Abo Akademi University.
• Kämpfe, B., Zimmermann, J., Dreisbusch, M., Grimm, A. L., Schumann, J. H., Naujoks, F., Keinath, A. & Krems, J. (2022). Preferences and Perceptions of Bidirectional Charging from a Customer’s Perspective – A Literature Review and Qualitative Approach. Proceedings, 177-191.

(Doctoral Researcher at Vilnius University, Lithuania)

Research Interest: Propaganda, Disinformation, Fake News identification, analysis, and monitoring; NLP; Low-resource languages; Corpus Annotation.

Language(s): Lithuanian, English

Methodologies:  Natural Language Processing methods, Machine Learning, Large Language Models (LLMs)

Programming: Python, SQL, R

Tools: Visual Studio Code, PyCharm

Doctoral Researcher at Finnish Centre for Artificial Intelligence
M.A. International Christian University, Japan

Research Interests: AI Ethics, AI and Trust-building, East Asian popular culture, Music Industry, K-pop, Social Media

Languages:  fluent in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean

Methodologies: qualitative and quantitative analysis with statistics and computational techniques, including SEM, Topic Modelling, and Sentiment Analysis.

Programming: Python 

Tools: SPSS, R, KH Coder 

Recent Publications:

• Yang, S., Seeck, H., Melchior, C. (2025). Tainted Idols, Global Reactions: A Cross-Cultural Study of Public Responses to K-pop Celebrity Controversies. ICA Annual Conference 2025, Denver,  United States.
• Yang, S. (2024). Trust in AI in China: A Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Public Opinion and Factors Affecting Trust Levels in AI. ICA Annual Conference 2024, Gold Coast, Australia.
• Yang, S., and Jung, J. (2023). Public Opinion Toward the Rape Victim in China: A Content Analysis of a MeToo Movement Case on Sina Weibo. ICA Annual Conference 2023, Toronto, Canada.

Doctoral Programme in Drug Research, University of Helsinki | MSc University of Helsinki, Finland

Research interests: crisis management, cross-sector collaboration, COVID-19, pharmaceutical supply chain, pharmaceutical industry, pharmacy, healthcare system development, Nordic countries

Language: Finnish, English, Swedish, German, Danish

Methodologies: quantitative and qualitative methods

Work experience: pharmaceutical industry (Novo Nordisk, ratiopharm), community pharmacies, hospital pharmacy (Helsinki University Hospital), Finnish Medicines Agency

Recent publications:

• Latonen, S. (2025). Crisis management and cross-sectoral collaboration among pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic. e-thesis . http://hdl.handle.net/10138/592759
• Latonen, S., Pussila, S., Seeck, H., Airaksinen, M., Juppo, A. M. (2025). Crisis management in the pharmaceutical industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 125.
• Latonen, S., Juppo, A. M., Seeck, H., Airaksinen, M. (2025). Crisis management in Finnish hospital pharmacies during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Health Services Research, 25. http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-025-12643-7
• Latonen, SH , Neuvonen, E. , Juppo, AM , Seeck, H. , & Airaksinen, M. (2024). Crisis management in community Pharmacies during a Pandemic. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 20(9), 940-948. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2024.06.010
• Latonen, S. H., Suominen, R. M., Juppo, A. M., Airaksinen, M., & Seeck, H. (2023). Organisation of cross-sector collaboration and its influence on crisis management effectiveness among pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Health, 222, 196-204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2023.06.042
• Rimpelä, A.-K., Schmitt, M., Latonen, S., Hagström, M., Antopolsky, M., Manzanares, J. A., Kidron, H., & Urtti, A. (2016). Drug Distribution to Retinal Pigment Epithelium: Studies on Melanin Binding, Cellular Kinetics, and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography/Computed Tomography Imaging. Molecular Pharmaceutics, 13(9), 2977-2986. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.5b00787

Doctoral Programme | Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability, Kyoto University, Japan

Research Interests: Financial inclusion, migration and remittances, gender, social resilience, decentralized and digital technologies (e.g. blockchain)

Languages: English, Japanese, French

Methodologies: Network analysis, social science surveys, mixed methods, dimensionality reduction (SVD, PCA), statistical analysis

Tools: R, Python, Stata

Work experience: ERIA (Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia), corporate banking