CEMAS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Programme Director at the Alfred Landecker Foundation Focusing on Jewish Life and Digital Resilience
Benjamin Fischer, programme director at the Alfred Landecker Foundation focusing on Jewish life and digital resilience
Job Titles:
- Scientific Director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt With a Focus on Scientific Communication
Dr. Mirjam Jenny, scientific director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt with a focus on scientific communication
Pia Lamberty is the Managing Director (together with Josef Holnburger) of CeMAS, and has spent years as a psychologist researching why people believe in conspiracy narratives and the consequences of these worldviews. As part of her Ph.D at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, she focused on the role of conspiracy beliefs in the health sector. Her research has taken her to universities in Cologne, Mainz and Beersheva (Israel). As a research associate, she was involved in the project "Seventy Years Later: Historical Representations of the Holocaust and their effects on German-Israeli Relations", among others. Lamberty places herself at the interface between academia and society, and provides evidence-based assessments of conspiracy narratives, disinformation, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism. Her non-fiction book Fake Facts - Wie Verschwörungstheorien unser Denken bestimmen ("Fake Facts - How Conspiracy Theories Influence Our Thinking"), published with Katharina Nocun in May 2020, was a DER SPIEGEL beststeller. This was followed in May 2021 by True Facts - Was gegen Verschwörungserzählungen wirklich hilft ("True Facts - What Really Helps to Counter Conspiracy Narratives"). In Autumn 2022, Lamberty and Nocun published their third book together: Gefährlicher Glaube - Die radikale Gedankenwelt der Esoterik ("Dangerous Beliefs - The Radical World of Esoteric Thought").
Adam-Troian, J., Wagner-Egger, P., Motyl, M., Arciszewski, T., Imhoff, R., Zimmer, F.,…Lamberty, P.,.. & van Prooijen, J. W. (2021). Investigating the links between cultural values and belief in conspiracy theories: The key roles of collectivism and masculinity. Political Psychology, 42(4), 597-618.
Imhoff, R., & Lamberty, P. (2020). A bioweapon or a hoax? The link between distinct conspiracy beliefs about the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and pandemic behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(8), 1110-1118.
Imhoff, R., & Lamberty, P. (2018). How paranoid are conspiracy believers? Toward a more fine-grained understanding of the connect and disconnect between paranoia and belief in conspiracy theories. European journal of social psychology, 48(7), 909-926.
Ingrid Brodnig, writer and journalist with a focus on addressing disinformation and hate speech
Jan Rathje is a Senior Researcher at CeMAS and a political scientist. He completed his studies in Potsdam and Greifswald with a focus on right-wing extremism and political theory. From 2013 to 2014, he worked in Mobile Counselling Against Right-Wing Extremism in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Between 2015 and 2020, he led multiple projects on conspiracy ideologies and antisemitism for the Amadeu Antonio Foundation. His research areas of focus include online right-wing extremism, conspiracy ideologies, and antisemitism, as well as sovereigntist movements in Germany and in the USA.
Joe Düker is a junior researcher at CeMAS with a focus on right-wing extremism in German-speaking online communities. Using OSINT research and systematic online monitoring, he observes and analyzes right-wing extremist phenomena on the Internet. This includes the recording of relevant trends, narratives and strategies of right-wing extremist actors. Previously, he worked for several years at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation's online monitoring project de:hate.
Josef Holnburger is the Managing Director (together with Pia Lamberty) of CeMAS and works as a political data scientist at the interface between political and computer science. He focuses on the collection and analysis of data from numerous digital platforms using the latest computer-based methods. For years, he has been researching the spread of conspiracy narratives, disinformation, antisemitism, and right-wing extremism, especially on alternative platforms such as Telegram. He primarily investigates radicalization trends and pathways. Thanks to his extensive experience in the area of conspiracy ideology, he is able to publish real-time assessments of the potential dangers, developments, and spreading of the extremist scene.
Lea Frühwirth is a senior researcher at CeMAS and a psychologist. She focuses on the impact of digital discourse on society and politics, especially on the modes of action and mechanisms of manipulative content. From 2018 to 2021, she worked at Reconquista Internet and Hassmelden, where her focus was on the impact of digital hate and the development of possible countermeasures. From 2021, she focused on outreach and political education work in the digital space. As a senior researcher at CeMAS, she focuses on disinformation, propaganda and conspiracy ideology.
Job Titles:
- Researcher
- Senior Researcher
Miro Dittrich is a Senior Researcher at CeMAS and a researcher of right-wing extremism. He works at the interface of technology and society with a focus on misanthropic and anti-democratic phenomena in the digital space. Using qualitative, quantitative, and OSINT-guided research, he has worked for years to shed light on right-wing propaganda, networking, and radicalization in digital spaces. Since 2019, in the wake of increasing radicalization in the far-right scene, he has become increasingly focused on international right-wing terrorism and niche digital spaces. His other focus areas include content moderation and digital subcultures. He regularly advises social media companies in his role as an expert on right-wing extremism. From 2018 to 2020, he led the de:hate project on far-right, populist right, and conspiracy-ideological digital phenomena for the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Communications Scientist at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences ( HAW Hamburg )
Job Titles:
- Scientist Focusing on Antisemitism