Brooke Foucault Welles

Brooke Foucault Welles is an associate professor and the interim chair of the Communication Studies Department. She also serves as a core faculty member of the Network Science Institute and director of the Communication Media and Marginalization Lab.

Foucault Welles studies power and amplification in online communication networks, why marginalization persists within these networks and how to disrupt it. Her work combines network science methods with social science theories through interdisciplinary collaborations with co-authors in computer science, political science, digital humanities, design, and public health.

She is a co-author of #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press) and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Networked Communication. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Communication, Information, Communication and Society, and The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

Foucault Welles received the Excellence in Teaching Award from Northeastern University and the International Communication Association Applied/Public Policy Research Award. She is the founder of Women in Network Science, and she holds a doctoral degree in communication from Northwestern University.