Natasha Goel

Why do beliefs persist even when they don't match the facts? I study how people engage with information across the digital ecosystem, including social media, podcasts, and AI tools like Google AI Overview and chatbots, and how it shapes our political beliefs and decisions. I consider this at two levels: individually, how biases, affect, and identities determine whose information we believe, and at the platform level, how these tools drive the incentives behind what we see and how we engage with it.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University working with David Rand and Gordon Pennycook. I received my PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in Summer 2026. I was previously a Research Fellow at the Policy, Elections, and Representation Lab (PEARL) and the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO).

My work appears in Journal of Experimental Political Science (JEPS), Political Behavior, and Tech Policy Press.

Beyond research, ask me about movies, the collection of personal essays I am working on, how my running is going, or the last glass of wine I had.