Digital Analysis Unit

Francesca Arcostanzo is the Lead of the Digital Analysis Unit at ISD, working to ensure our research methods, tools and approaches in the digital analysis space remain consistent and innovative. With a decade of experience in digital research, she is an expert in digital methods, including text network, and statistical analysis of large-scale datasets. Recently, she has been involved in the development of Beam, the ISD-CASM technology that exposes, tracks and confronts online information threats, from disinformation to hate, extremism, information operations, harassment and harmful conspiracy theories. Francesca also holds a PhD in Public Opinion, Political Communication, and Electoral Behaviour from the University of Milan, an MA in Government and Public Communication, and an MSc in Intelligence & ICT. Previously, she served as a Digital Analytics Specialist at the European Central Bank, where she monitored and analysed conversations, disinformation and threats related to ECB policies. She is also a partner at CASM Technology.

Cooper Gatewood is a Senior Digital Research Manager within ISD’s Digital Research Unit, focusing on quantitative research into the spread of hateful and polarising narratives online, and how they are leveraged by extremist actors. Cooper is currently contributing to ISD’s research on disinformation campaigns, particularly those aimed to influence and disrupt election processes. He also manages on the Online Civil Courage Initiative in France, coordinating activities to support civil society’s response to hate and extremism online. In addition, Cooper conducts ongoing evaluation of a number of ISD’s programmes, including Be Internet Citizens and Young Digital Leaders. Cooper also develops monitoring and evaluation frameworks for a number of ISD’s education projects. Previously, Cooper worked at Portland, where he advised clients from the non-profit and government sectors on their media engagement and social media strategies. He is the co-author of ISD reports The Boom Before the Ban: QAnon and Facebook, La pandémie de COVID-19: terreau fertile de la haine en ligne, Fostering Civic Responses to Online Harms, Promouvoir le civisme en ligne face aux malveillances à l’ère du numérique, Disinformation briefing: Narratives around Black Lives Matter and voter fraud, Mapping hate in France: A panoramic view of online discourse, and Building Digital Citizenship in France: Lessons from the Sens Critique project. Cooper holds a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University and a Masters of International Security from Sciences Po and is fluent in Spanish and French, as well as speaking proficient Japanese.

Kevin D. Reyes is a Senior OSINT Specialist in ISD's Digital Analysis Unit, where he leads open-source investigations methods and researches online hate, extremism and disinformation. He previously worked as the director of research and intelligence at a consulting firm, and conducted open-source investigations for law enforcement and Fortune 500 clients into illicit trade and transnational crime, including: pharmaceutical counterfeiting; opioid trafficking; COVID-19 treatment scams; money laundering; corporate and charity fraud; counterfeit food and coffee; and wildlife and antiquities trafficking; as well as disinformation and extremism. Prior to intelligence consulting, Reyes worked in law library management at several law schools, and in international criminal law research at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights in Washington DC and at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law. While at the Human Rights Center in 2016, he helped launch its Human Rights Investigations Lab, the first university-based, open-source investigations lab of its kind to discover and verify human rights violations and potential war crimes. Reyes received his bachelor’s from the University of California, Berkeley.