Dr. Azi Lev-On has been appointed as the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Visiting Israel Professor at the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences for the 2009-10 academic year.  Lev-On will focus his research on behavior and organization in computer-mediated environments.

Lev-On serves as the head of the new media track in Ariel University Center in the City of Ariel in Israel. An expert in political communication and political theory, Dr. Lev-On studies the social and political uses of the Internet, focusing on questions of collective action and democratic governance.  His recent research studies how and why computer-mediated communication impacts monetary transfers in trust games, and how people rank news stories online. A particular area of interest has been Internet usage surrounding political events in Israel, through which Lev-On examines the behaviors of a wide range of citizens including political candidates, Ultra-Orthodox segments, and Gaza Strip evacuees.  At Stanford, Lev-On will teach classes on the social and political impacts of the Internet, models of democracy, and Israeli politics and society.

The professorship is funded by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), a nonpartisan organization committed to strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship by emphasizing the fundamental values that our nations share. AICE was established in 1993 as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) and provides a vehicle for the research, study, discussion and exchange of views concerning nonmilitary cooperation (Shared Value Initiatives) between the peoples and governments of the United States and Israel.