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Ryan Boyd

Ryan Boyd

Assistant Professor - Department of Psychology

Language is everywhere — it gives shape to our thoughts and experiences, helping us navigate the world. I use computational methods (natural language processing, machine learning, etc.) to study how language provides clues about how we think, feel, and act in everyday life.

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Professional Preparation

Ph.D. - Social/Personality Psychology
University of Texas at Austin - 2017
M.Sc. - Social/Health Psychology
North Dakota State University - 2012
B.A. - Psychology
Purdue University Ft. Wayne - 2010

Research Areas

Brief Profile
Dr. Ryan L. Boyd is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas. He studies how everyday language reflects and shapes human psychology — from personality and emotion to social connection and mental health — in both laboratory and real-world settings. His cross-disciplinary work spans psychology, computational social science, and NLP, and includes large-scale studies of natural text, validated language measures, and collaborations that translate findings into practical tools and interventions. He has authored 100+ scholarly papers and co-edited The Handbook of Language Analysis in Psychology. Boyd is a leading contributor to the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) project and has developed numerous open-source text-analysis applications used by researchers and practitioners. His work has been cited by policy and regulatory bodies, including the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and he serves on editorial and advisory boards across psychology and computational social science.

Publications

Mahwish, S., Boyd, R. L., Varadarajan, V., Kotov, R., Luft, B. J., Schwartz, H. A., & Clouston, S. A. P. (2026). Measuring resilience using language modeling: A computational approach to observing resilience. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 39(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.70046 2026 - publications
Kjell, O., Ganesan, A. V., Boyd, R. L., Oltmanns, J., Rivero, A., Feltman, S., Carr, M. A., Alves, J., Luft, B., Kotov, R., & Schwartz, H. A. (2026). Replicability and validity of a new artificial-intelligence assessment of posttraumatic stress disorder from patient language: A sequential evaluation with model preregistration. Clinical Psychological Science, 21677026261439026. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026261439026 2026 - publications
Boyd, R. L., & Markowitz, D. M. (2026). Artificial intelligence and the psychology of human connection. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 21(2), 192–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916251404394 2026 - publications
Boyd, R. L., Srinivas, S., Phadke, S., Wilson, S. R., & Pasca, P. (2026). Artificial intelligence and computation in the social sciences: A paradigm shift. In I. Thompson, G. P. Yankov, & I. Hernandez (Eds.), Artificial intelligence for I–O psychologists: Research and applications (pp. 35–71). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197807309.003.0003 2026 - publications
Vu, H., Nguyen, H. A., Ganesan, A. V., Juhng, S., Kjell, O. N. E., Sedoc, J., Kern, M. L., Boyd, R. L., Ungar, L., Schwartz, H. A., & Eichstaedt, J. C. (2026). PsychAdapter: Adapting LLMs to reflect traits, personality, and mental health. npj Artificial Intelligence, 2(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44387-026-00071-9
2026 - publications
Meier, T., Huber, Z. M., Dworakowski, O., Haase, C. M., Boyd, R. L., & Horn, A. B. (2026). Everyday conversations of younger and older couples: Age differences in we-ness, emotions, and conversation topics. Psychology and Aging, 41(2), 241–255. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000971 2026 - publications
Entwistle, C., Hoemann, K., Nightingale, S. J., & Boyd, R. L. (2025). Psychosocial dynamics of suicidality and nonsuicidal self-injury: A digital linguistic perspective. npj Mental Health Research, 4(28), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44184-025-00142-w
2025 - publications
Oosthuizen, I., Swanepoel, D. W., Boyd, R. L., Pennebaker, J. W., Launer, S., & Manchaiah, V. (2025). Exploring adult hearing aid user experiences: Meaning extraction methods, content patterns, and associations with demographic and outcome variables. International Journal of Audiology, 64(9), 909–919. https://doi.org/10.1080/14992027.2024.2415958 2025 - publications

Appointments

Assistant Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Dallas [2024–Present]
Affiliated Faculty
Texas Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, University of Texas at Dallas [2025–Present]
https://tairi.utdallas.edu/
Associate Research Professor / Principal Research Scientist
Department of Computer Science, Stony Brook University [2023–2024]
Computational Social Scientist
Behavioral Science Lab & Threat Research Lab, ByteDance / TikTok [2022–2023]
Assistant Professor of Behavioral Analytics
Department of Psychology / Data Science Institute / Security Lancaster, Lancaster University [2019–2022]
Visiting Scholar
Adaptive Systems and Interaction Research Group, Microsoft Research [2018–2018]
Visiting Scholar
HLAB, Department of Computer Science, Stony Brook University [2018–2018]
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin [2017–2019]

News Articles

A top Disney exec is gushing about his AI 'son'
The psychology of why we use slang
When Feedback Crosses the Line
How Online Language Choices May Signal Self-Harm Risk
AI, Computers and Humans: the Social Implications | Perspectives Matter

Funding

Digital Interventions to Mitigate Behavioral Health Access Barriers in North Texas
400,000 - Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) Minority Health Grant Program (MHGP) []
Co-Investigator
Enhancing Large Language Models for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Conversations
$25,000 - University of Texas at Dallas NFRS Seed Program [2025/08–2025/07]
Co-Principal Investigator
Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST)
$7,300,000 - Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC ES/V002775/1) [2020/07–2022/06]
Co-Investigator
News media and shared representations: The development and validation of an automated approach to the detection of linguistic bias
$52,000 - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Insight Development Grant (SSHRC-IDG 430-2020-00212) [2020/06–2023/06]
Collaborating Investigator
Computational social science: Social data bias
$183,687 - Alan Turing Institute, UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory [2021/06–2022/05]
Co-Investigator