Dr. Sameer Hinduja is a Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University, Co-Director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University.
He is recognized internationally for his translational work on the risks and harms of new technologies on populations of youth, and the individual, social, familial, and community-level factors that can serve as protective assets. During the 2026–27 academic year, he is leading a funded national study of how teenagers adopt, use, and misuse AI companion chatbots, with particular attention to sexualized interactions, grooming-adjacent dynamics, and pathways into sexual exploitation. Working from that data, he is also building machine learning models that estimate individualized risk profiles for certain online harms, based on behavioral patterns rather than demographics, so that platforms can recognize vulnerability earlier and design safeguards accordingly. Alongside the empirical work, he is researching, writing, and speaking on the merits and drawbacks of regulatory approaches to youth online safety around the world, including state-level restrictions on AI toys and federal proposals to govern companion chatbots. He is also developing AI literacy curricula for secondary schools, which moves what the research uncovers into the hands of students and educators who need it now rather than years from now.
Dr. Hinduja has written eight books, and his interdisciplinary research has been cited approximately 30,000 times in a wide range of fields including pediatrics, information technology, computer science, business, psychology, education, and nursing. As a noted researcher and speaker on youth and social media issues for the last 20 years, Dr. Hinduja trains technologists, educators, mental health professionals, youth specialists, parents, and students around the world on how to promote the positive use of technology, build healthy online communities, and support well-being. His studies have explored the impact of empathy, resilience, hope, climate and culture, deterrence strategies, social norms, parenting dimensions, peer-led initiatives, the role of a variety of stakeholders including law enforcement and online platforms, and more. Dr. Hinduja is frequently asked to provide expert commentary by news organizations, and his work has been featured in venues that include CNN, NPR, the BBC, and The New York Times.
He has recently been recognized in the Stanford University and Elsevier ranking of the world's Top 2% of scientists. Dr. Hinduja has worked with numerous corporations (including Google, Snap, Twitch, Meta, TikTok, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, Verizon, and Cartoon Network) and organizations (including the United Nations, the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, the National Guard, the National PTA, and the Anti-Defamation League) on how best to shape policy, programs, and other initiatives. He has received Auburn University's Global Anti-Bullying Hero Award, won Florida Atlantic University's Researcher of the Year award, presented on cyberbullying at a Congressional Briefing on Capitol Hill, testified in front of the Attorney General and the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, and served as a Fulbright Specialist Scholar at Dublin City University. He has advised two White House administrations on youth online safety, including formal service with the federal Interagency Task Force on Kids Online Health & Safety. Dr. Hinduja is the Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Bullying Prevention, published by Springer. He also has served as an expert witness for both national and international cases.
