João Franco is a PhD student in Complex Systems and Data Science at the University of Vermont, collaborating with The Joint Lab. He also works closely with the Computational Ethics Lab. João's research interests lie in understanding the (complex) dynamics of social systems, with a current focus on belief dynamics — how beliefs form and evolve, and the impact of algorithmic, psychological and social factors on these processes.

Before coming to Vermont, João collaborated with the Social Physics & Complexity Lab, led by Prof. Joana Gonçalves de Sá, on an ERC-funded project investigating algorithmic biases in search engines and large language models.