Honors & Awards


  • PhD Research Fellowship, Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (09/2022 - present)
  • SAP Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering, Stanford University (09/2019 - present)
  • Summer Collaborative Research Fellowship, Stanford Impact Labs (06/2022 - 09/2022)
  • Student Fellowship, German Academic Scholarship Foundation (01/2014 - 06/2019)

Professional Affiliations and Activities


  • Member, Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) (2019 - Present)

Current Research and Scholarly Interests


Ruth Appel combines insights and methods from psychology, political science and computer science to develop and evaluate evidence-based personalized interventions to promote the social good. She is particularly passionate about preventing the spread of misinformation, encouraging political participation, promoting wellbeing and mental health, and addressing ethical challenges related to new technologies. Her current research projects include the 2020 Facebook Election Research Project and an online game to combat vaccine misinformation. She has also written about the ethics and privacy implications of new technologies.

Work Experience


  • User Experience Research Intern, Google LLC (6/2020 - 9/2020)

    Location

    San Francisco, CA

  • Associate in Research in the Health Division, Duke University, Center for Advanced Hindsight (2/2019 - 6/2019)

    Location

    Durham, NC, USA

  • Intern in the Fifth Committee Section, Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations (9/2016 - 12/2016)

    Location

    New York, NY, USA

  • Intern in the Strategy Department, Telekom Deutschland GmbH (4/2017 - 6/2017)

    Location

    Bonn, Germany

All Publications


  • Partisan Conflict Over Content Moderation Is More Than Disagreement about Facts Appel, R., Pan, J., Roberts, M. E. SSRN. 2023
  • Privacy and ethics in the age of Big Data The psychology of technology: Social science research in the age of Big Data Matz, S. C., Appel, R., Croll, B. American Psychological Association. 2022: 379-420

    View details for DOI 10.1037/0000290-012

  • Psychological targeting in the age of Big Data Measuring and Modeling Persons and Situations Appel, R., Matz, S. Elsevier. 2021: 193-222
  • Privacy in the age of psychological targeting Current Opinion in Psychology Matz, S. C., Appel, R. E., Kosinski, M. 2020; 31: 116–121