Sociology

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Trinity College Dublin
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Dr. Hao Cui

Dr. Hao Cui

Research Fellow, Sociology

3531896 2701https://cuihaosabrina.com/

Biography

Hao is a Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, where she studies human-machine social systems. Prior to her role at Trinity, Hao was a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Sociology and the Geary Institute for Public Policy at University College Dublin. Her interests in social systems began with her doctoral research on collective attention and online behavior. She earned a Ph.D. in Network Science from Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria, where she studied the dynamics of microblogging platforms investigating the mechanisms and patterns behind the emergence of popular hashtags using large-scale data analytics. Hao's research has been featured in The Conversation, the Dutch national daily de Volkskrant, and MIT Technology Review (Chinese edition).

Publications and Further Research Outputs

  • Hao Cui, Taha Yasseri, AI-enhanced Collective Intelligence, 2024Journal Article, 2024, DOI
  • Hao Cui, Attention dynamics on the Chinese social media Sina Weibo during the COVID-19 pandemic, EPJ Data Science, 10, (1), 2021Journal Article, 2021, DOI
  • Cui, Hao, Yasseri, Taha, Gender bias in perception of human managers extends to AI managers, Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 21, 2026, p100984Journal Article, 2026, DOI
  • Cui, Hao, Kertész, János, Competition for popularity and interventions on a Chinese microblogging site, PLOS ONE, 18, (5), 2023, pe0286093Journal Article, 2023, DOI
  • Cui, Hao, Kertész, János, "Born in Rome" or "Sleeping Beauty": Emergence of hashtag popularity on the Chinese microblog Sina Weibo, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 619, 2023, p128724Journal Article, 2023, DOI
  • Hao Cui, Taha Yasseri, Female Managers Are Judged More Harshly Even When They Are AI, Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications, 2025Book Chapter, 2025, DOI

Research Expertise

Hao's work includes a recent comprehensive review in the field of AI-enhanced collective intelligence, integrating perspectives from complexity science and network science to understand how hybrid systems think, adapt, and make decisions. Currently, Hao's research focuses on human-AI interaction within collaborative contexts, examining how people perceive and behave when AI takes on a spectrum of functional roles and levels of agency. Using online behavioral experiments, she explores the behavioral and perceptual dynamics of individuals, as well as the broader societal implications of integrating AI into social systems and decision-making processes.