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Dr Stef De Sabbata

Former Researcher
Stef De Sabbata

Dr Stef De Sabbata

Former Researcher
(she/her)

About

Stef’s work at the Oxford Internet Institute focused on the analysis and visualisation of the geographies of the Internet. The project aims to study the contemporary geographies of knowledge and the ways that those information landscapes are changing over time. In particular, she is interested in studying how geography influences information access, production, and representation, and how geographic places are discussed and represented on the Internet.

Stef’s research focuses on Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI). Her primary research interests lie in representation learning and foundation models, developing deep neural networks for urban analytics, including geodemographic classification and the study of urban form and function. Moreover, her recent work includes geospatial approaches to AI safety and mechanistic interpretability, exploring how large language models “think” about geographic information, and applications in cultural analytics.
Before joining the University of Leicester, Stef was a Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. She was awarded a PhD from the Department of Geography at the University of Zurich and holds a BSc and an MSc from the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics of the University of Udine.

Research Interests

Internet geographies, urban analytics, geospatial artificial intelligence

Positions at the OII

  • Research Associate, October 2015 - March 2021
  • Researcher, May 2013 - September 2015

Research

News & Press