Visiting Researchers

The Landecker Digital Memory Lab welcomes visiting fellows. We can offer funding for short stays, but you are welcome to join us for a self- or institution-funded study visit too. Please use our contact form to enquire.

Mykola Makhortykh is an Alfred Landecker Lecturer at the Institute of Communication and Media Science, where he studies the impact of algorithmic systems and AI on Holocaust memory transmission. His other research interests include trauma and memory studies, armed conflict reporting, cybersecurity and critical security studies, and bias in AI systems.

Maryna Sydorova is a data engineer and a scientific programmer at the Institute of Communication and Media Science at the University of Bern. Before working at the Institute, Maryna worked as a freelance data scientist and cloud architect with a particular emphasis on AI. She has been involved in multiple algorithm and AI audit projects as a full-stack developer responsible for the implementation of a cloud-based cross-platform audit infrastructures and post-audit data analysis. Many of these projects dealt with the representation and distortion of Holocaust memory and the propagation of conspiratorial information and hate speech in online environments. In addition to working on AI audits, Maryna has been researching the use of digital platforms and their affordances for Russian disinformation and propaganda in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the instrumentalization of historical memory by the Kremlin. Her publications on these topics appeared recently in Visual Communication, Eastern European Holocaust Studies, and HKS Misinformation Review.

Mykola and Maryna’s visit to the Landecker Digital Memory Lab is co-funded by the Lab and The Isaacsohn and André Families’ Visiting Fellowship, Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies.