Massimo Stella

Massimo Stella is a Senior Researcher and Professore su chiamata diretta dall'Estero in the Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Trento, a position held since 2023. Before joining Trento, Stella worked as a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Exeter from 2020 to 2022, and prior to that ran an independent research consultancy, Complex Science Consulting, from 2018 to 2020. Stella's research applies cognitive network science, multilayer and multiplex network models, and natural language processing to questions in psychometrics, mental health, and language learning, including the study of math anxiety, suicide notes, depression communities, and the cognitive biases of large language models. A recurring thread across this work is the use of network-based representations of the mental lexicon to analyze how knowledge and emotion are structured and expressed in both human and AI-generated text.