Nic DePaula (ha8261)

Nic DePaula is an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Sciences. Dr. DePaula is a social scientist working in the areas of information policies, information systems, health communication and environmental health information. His work has contributed to our knowledge of how public agencies use social media, the role of platforms and message design on health communication, and information management issues in the public sector. His work has also contributed to research on information technologies for sustainability and AI policies in government. 

Dr. DePaula's research currently examines the role of social and environmental factors on the communication of health and risk information. His work has been applied to several important challenges, including how message features impact message engagement across social media platforms; the political impacts on US government provision of climate change information; and developing information systems for visualizing industrial toxicants released into the environment. He has conducted several studies of public health communication during health emergencies. Dr. DePaula's work has also contributed to research on ontologies for product tracing information, and how governments and public agencies are addressing challenges with AI technologies, especially in the health and environmental domains. Dr. DePaula runs the Lab for Health and Environmental Informatics (LHEI) to support some of this research and practice.

His research has been published in various journals including Government Information Quarterly, Social Science Computer Review, JMIR Infodemiology, and First Monday, and has been presented at several national and international conferences. Dr. DePaula received his Ph.D. in Information Science, and degrees in Geography and Urban Planning from the State University of New York at Albany. He has taught courses on information management, data analytics, media and society, and others.

Lab for Health and Environmental Informatics

Google Scholar Profile

• Ph.D., Information Science, State University of New York at Albany - 2020
• M.R.P. Master of Regional Planning, State University of New York at Albany - 2012
• B.A. Geography, Summa cum laude, State University of New York at Albany - 2009

• Statistical Analysis with R for Public Health, Imperial College London - 2023
• Certificate in Applied Data Science with Python, University of Michigan - 2019

300.23 Kresge Library

DePaula, N. (2023). Political ideology and information technology in government online communication. Government Information Quarterly, 40(1). 

DePaula, N., Hagen, L., Roytman, S., Alnahass, D. (2022). Platform effects on public health communication: A national study of message design and audience engagement across Twitter and Facebook. JMIR Infodemilogy, 2(2).

DePaula, N., Hagen, L., Roytman, S., Dyson, D., Alnahass, D., Mihir,P., Hill, A. (2022). A framework of social media messages for crisis and risk communication: A study of the Covid-19 pandemic. Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2391-2400.

Harrison, T., Dumas, C., DePaula, N., Fake, T., May, W., Atrey, A., et al. (2022). Exploring e-Petitioning and Media: The Case of #BringBackOurGirls. Government Information Quarterly, 39(1), 101569.

DePaula, N. and Dincelli, E. (2018). Information strategies and affective reactions: How citizens interact with government social media content. First Monday, 23(4).

Luciano, J., Sayogo, D., Ran, W., DePaula, N., Jarman, H., et al. (2018). Building a certification and inspection data infrastructure to promote transparent markets. International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 13(4), 53-75.

DePaula, N., Dincelli, E. and Harrison, T. (2018). Toward a typology of government social media communication: Democratic goals, symbolic acts and self-presentation. Government Information Quarterly, 35(1), 98-108.

Hagen, L., Keller, T., Neely, S., DePaula, N., Cooperman, C. (2017). Crisis communications in the age of social media: A network analysis of zika-related tweets. Social Science Computer Review, 36(5), 523-541.