Eslam Hussein

Hi, my name is Eslam Hussein. I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. My research sits at the intersection of multimodal machine learning, natural language processing, and social computing, with a core focus on combating online misinformation. Under the supervision of Professor Chris Thomas, I develop models for video entailment to detect manipulated and out-of-context videos using multimodal learning and graph neural networks.

Experience

Before joining Virginia Tech, I was a research associate at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), where I worked on graph analytics and search-related problems. During my time at QCRI, I co-authored a demo paper that received an honorable mention at SIGMOD'17. Prior to that, I served for eight years as an assistant lecturer at Cairo University, where I also earned my master’s degree in Computer Science. This academic role significantly strengthened my teaching abilities and deepened my foundational knowledge in the field. While pursuing my master’s, I published two conference papers and one journal article. Concurrently, I worked as a software engineer in several Cairo-based companies, which enhanced my practical experience and software engineering skills.

Media Coverage

The YouTube audit study on algorithmic recommendations has received international media attention for its impact on public discourse and platform accountability. The study was featured in:

  • November 2020: New study finds YouTube is now suppressing anti-vaccine videos. The Hill
  • November 2020: YouTube’s algorithm is steering viewers away from anti-vaccine videos. Business Insider

News

  • May 2025: Successfully defended my Ph.D. preliminary exam at Virginia Tech.
  • October 2023: a new paper accepted to EMNLP'23 Findings: Narrative Style and the Spread of Health Misinformation on Twitter [Paper].
  • 2021: Honored with Special Recognition for Outstanding Reviews, ACM CSCW 2021.
  • September 2020: a new audit study published at arXiv: Investigating Misinformation in Online Marketplaces: An Audit Study on Amazon [Paper].
  • March 2020: paper accepted at CSCW 2020: Measuring Misinformation in Video Search Platforms: An Audit Study on YouTube [Paper].
  • April 2019: poster accepted about Auditing YouTube for Misinformation at the Fourth Annual Virginia Tech Workshop on the Future of Human-Computer Interaction:: Algorithms that make you think, [Poster].
  • August 2018: admitted to the Ph.D. program in Computer Science at Virginia Tech
  • October 2017: paper accepted at the Logic Journal of the IGPL (Impact factor 0.931), [Paper].
  • May 2017: demo paper accepted at SIGMOD'17 (honorable mention).
  • April 2016: joining QCRI as a research associate, [Link].
  • December 2015: successfully defended my master thesis at Cairo University.