About Me

I’m a computational social scientist, currently working as an Assistant Professor at University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Philosophy. I completed my sociology PhD in 2019 and my main research interests are centered around applying and developing statistical and computational methods.

I’m also as a member of Serbian European Social Survey team.

My Erdős number is 4 (A. Tomašević – M. Mitrović Danuklov – G. Caldarelli – B. Bollobás – P. Erdős).

Fulbright grant

In the Fall semester of 2023, I will be a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of Virginia. During my visit, I will be working closely with Hudson Golino in the Department of Psychology.

I’m also looking forward to meeting, collaborating, and discussing ideas about computational social science, network science, or complex systems with people from across disciplines. I will have plenty of time, so feel free to write an email and let’s arrange a meeting :)

Recent Research Articles

• The Face of Populism: Examining Differences in Facial Emotional Expressions of Political Leaders Using Machine Learning

  BibTeX

  @misc{major2023Face,
  title = {The {{Face}} of {{Populism}}: {{Examining Differences}} in {{Facial Emotional Expressions}} of {{Political Leaders Using Machine Learning}}},
  shorttitle = {The {{Face}} of {{Populism}}},
  author = {Major, Sara and Toma{\v s}evi{'c}, Aleksandar},
  year = {2023},
  number = {arXiv:2304.09914},
  eprint = {2304.09914},
  primaryclass = {physics},
  publisher = {{arXiv}},
  urldate = {2023-04-21},
  archiveprefix = {arxiv},
  copyright = {All rights reserved},
  keywords = {Computer Science - Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition,Computer Science - Computers and Society,Computer Science - Machine Learning,Computer Science - Social and Information Networks,J.4,Physics - Physics and Society}
  }
  

• Sustainability of Stack Exchange Q&A communities: the role of trust

  BibTeX

  @article{vranic2023Sustainability,
  title = {Sustainability of {{Stack Exchange Q}}&{{A}} Communities: The Role of Trust},
  shorttitle = {Sustainability of {{Stack Exchange Q}}&{{A}} Communities},
  author = {Vrani{'c}, Ana and Toma{\v s}evi{'c}, Aleksandar and Alori{'c}, Aleksandra and Mitrovi{'c} Dankulov, Marija},
  year = {2023},
  journal = {EPJ Data Science},
  volume = {12},
  number = {1},
  pages = {1–24},
  publisher = {{SpringerOpen}},
  doi = {10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00381-x},
  abstract = {Knowledge-sharing communities are fundamental elements of a knowledge-based society. Understanding how different factors influence their sustainability is of crucial importance. We explore the role of the social network structure and social trust in their sustainability. We analyze the early evolution of social networks in four pairs of active and closed Stack Exchange communities on topics of physics, astronomy, economics, and literature and use a dynamical reputation model to quantify the evolution of social trust in them. In addition, we study the evolution of two active communities on mathematics topics and two closed communities about startups and compare them with our main results. Active communities have higher local cohesiveness and develop stable, better-connected, trustworthy cores. The early emergence of a stable and trustworthy core may be crucial for sustainable knowledge-sharing communities.},
  copyright = {2023 The Author(s)}
  }
  

Current Research Interests

• Computational Social Science
• Network Science
• Network Psychometrics

Professional Activities

• 2021 - Network Science Society, member
• 2021 - Center for Sociological Research, University of Novi Sad, coordinator
• 2022 - Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, member
• 2022 - Psychometric Society, member

Software

I’m a Linux 🐧 geek, so naturally I support FOSS in everything I do.

I enjoy coding in R, Python and Julia. I don’t enjoy JavaScript.

Whenever possible I prefer plain text (txt, md, tex) to alternatives. I like to own my files and don’t depend on proprietary software to read them in 5, 10 years or more. I’m also a fan of single text file productivty, you can check out my VSCode extension Working Memory for more details.

Publications

Computational Social Science & Complex Networks

• Major, S., & Tomašević, A. (2023). The Face of Populism: Examining Differences in Facial Emotional Expressions of Political Leaders Using Machine Learning (arXiv:2304.09914). arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.09914

  • GitHub repository: https://github.com/atomashevic/face-of-populism

• Vranić, A., Tomašević, A., Alorić, A., & Mitrović Dankulov, M. (2023). Sustainability of Stack Exchange Q&A communities: The role of trust. EPJ Data Science, 12(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00381-x

  • GitHub repository: https://github.com/ana-vranic/Stack-Exchange-communities

Network Psychometrics

• Dinić, B. M., Sokolovska, V., & Tomašević, A. (2021). The narcissism network and centrality of narcissism features. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01250-w

• Dinić, B. M., Wertag, A., Sokolovska, V., & Tomašević, A. (2021). The good, the bad, and the ugly: Revisiting the Dark Core. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01829-x

• Dinić, B. M., Wertag, A., Tomašević, A., & Sokolovska, V. (2020). Centrality and redundancy of the Dark Tetrad traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 155, 109621. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109621

• Sokolovska, V., Dinić, B., & Tomašević, A. (2018). Aggressiveness in the HEXACO personality model. Psihologija, 51(4), 449–468. https://doi.org/10.2298/PSI170705022S

Belief Networks

• Tomašević, A. (2021). Measuring the influence of beliefs in belief networks. ArXiv:2110.09154 [Physics, Stat]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2110.09154
  • GitHub repostiory: https://github.com/atomashevic/belief-influence

Other

• Lukić, V., & Tomašević, A. (2020). Immigrant integration regimes in Europe: Incorporating the Western Balkan countries. Acta Geographica Slovenica, 60(1), 143-153-143–153. https://doi.org/10.3986/AGS.7286

Consultancy

Over the years I’ve consulted with a number of companies and organizations. Most of it is survey design, research and data analysis. Contact me if you’re interested in my services.

Past clients:

• Council Of Europe
• Grasp Metrics
• Habitat For Humanity and Periferia Policy and Research Center

At the start of COVID-19 pandemic I was happy to volunteer for Data Versus Corona in attempt to use R and Shiny to visualize the pandemic.

You can find me on Mastodon