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Philadelphia, PA silvia.teliz@asc.upenn.edu LinkedIn Download PDF ↓

I am a PhD candidate (expected July 2027) at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, studying visual political communication and social biases in multimodal AI systems. I combine computer vision, natural language processing, and machine learning to analyze large-scale multimodal data, from TikTok content, to street political advertisements. My dissertation project, Visual Cues as Political Communication: A Computational Look into Mexican Federal Electoral Campaigns, examines how skin tone and other visual cues influence electoral outcomes in Mexico. I have also conducted research on the nature of social biases in large language models and visual language models. My work has been published in the International Journal of Press/Politics and presented at conferences such as IC2S2 and PolNet-PACSS. I have extensive experience in teaching and mentoring students, having served as a teaching fellow for two courses at the Annenberg School for Communication, and as an instructor of record at Universidad Panamericana.

Education

  • 2022 – 2027

    PhD, Communication

    Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania · Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Degree expected in July 2027. Dissertation title: 'Visual Cues as Political Communication: A Computational Look into Mexican Federal Electoral Campaigns'. Committee: Dr. Sandra González-Bailón (chair), Dr. Deen Freelon, Dr. Yphtach Lelkes.

  • 2022 – 2024

    Master of Arts, Communication

    Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania · Philadelphia, PA, USA

  • 2014 – 2018

    Bachelor of Arts, Communication

    Universidad Panamericana · Mexico City, Mexico

Publications

Presentations

  • 2026

    Understanding Bias in AI Systems

    Silvia Téliz

    Guest lecture · COM 107 AI and Creativity, Stony Brook University - Stony Brook, NY, USA

  • 2026

    Mechanisms of Social Bias in Large Language Models: Disentangling Linguistic Framing from Group Specification

    Vishwanath Emani Venkata and Silvia Téliz

    Conference presentation · IC2S2 conference - Burlington, VT, USA

  • 2025

    Picturing Immigration: A Multimodal Computational Analysis of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Campaign

    Silvia Téliz and Gayoung Jeon

    Poster presentation · PolNet-PACSS conference - Boston, MA, USA

  • 2025

    A Picture is Worth a Thousand Fictions: Visual Political Communication in the Age of Generative AI

    Silvia Téliz

    Invited talk · CIND Workshop 2025 - Philadelphia, PA, USA

  • 2024

    Hues of Victory: Using Computer Vision to Examine Skin Color's Influence on Electoral Success

    Silvia Téliz

    Conference presentation · ICA Preconference: "A Computational Turn in Journalism: Opportunities and Challenges in a Cross-Disciplinary Field" - Singapore

  • 2023

    Status, Color and Race: Dissecting the content of Latin American class stereotypes

    Valentina Proust Iligaray and Silvia Téliz

    Conference presentation · ICA Preconference: "Media and Communication in Global Latinidades" - Online

Experience

  • 2026

    Teaching Fellow

    Introduction to Communication Behavior - Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

    • Taught lecture 'Media Effects on Community and Everyday Culture'.
    • Taught recitation section, providing students with additional support and guidance on course materials.
    • Tutored students on how to improve their studying strategies and reading comprehension skills for weekly exams. Provided guidance on the development of a research plan for their final projects.
  • 2025 – Present

    Research Fellow

    Politics, Identities, and Communication Lab - Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

    • Secured $10,000 USD via the Annenberg School for Communication Internal Grant for the project 'Identifying Biases in VLMs' Zero-Shot Classifications of Race and Gender' (2026-2027 academic year), as lead researcher.
    • Collaborated on the theoretical conceptualization, formulation of overarching research goals, methodology design, computational analysis of text and image data, writing, reviewing, and editing for projects developed within the lab under Dr. Deen Freelon's supervision.
  • 2024

    Teaching Fellow

    Children and Media - Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

    • Taught lecture 'Racial Representations in Children's Media'.
    • Clarified students' doubts and provided additional support on course materials during dedicated office hours.
  • 2022 – 2023

    Research Fellow

    Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication - Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

    • Collaborated with Dr. Juan Llamas Rodríguez on the development of a mixed-methods study on the representation of gender and skin color stereotypes in Mexican telenovelas and TV series (a report commissioned by the Luminate foundation).
  • 2020 – 2022

    Instructor of Record

    Quantitative Methods for Communication Research - Universidad Panamericana · Mexico City, Mexico

    • Taught introductory course on quantitative research methods for students in the Communication major.
    • Introduced R into the curriculum as the main tool for learning Quantitative Methods.
    • Guided students through in-class exercises, which included statistical analysis, data visualization, and interpretation of results using R.
    • Designed original educational materials, including slides, assignments, tests, and lab activities.
  • 2018 – 2022

    Research Assistant

    Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) · Mexico City, Mexico

    • Coordinated a research consulting project to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the evaluation system of information transparency for the National Institute of Access to Information and Personal Data Protection.
    • Developed an academic program and created didactic content for the National School for Women of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, empowering female members through education on gender perspective, political representation, and communication strategies.
    • Created educational content for the Migrant-e project (led by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), teaching undocumented immigrants in the United States about their rights and safety tools.

Honors and awards

  • 2026

    Annenberg School for Communication Internal Grant

    Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

    $10,000 USD, principal investigator, for the project 'Identifying Biases in VLMs' Zero-Shot Classifications of Race and Gender' (2026-2027 academic year).

  • 2025

    Graduate Scholarship in Sciences and Humanities

    Ministry of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation of Mexico (SECIHTI)

  • 2022

    Fulbright García-Robles Scholarship

    US-Mexico Foundation (COMEXUS)

Certificates

  • 2026

    Summer Institute in Computational Social Science

    University of Pennsylvania

  • 2025

    Certificate in College and University Teaching

    University of Pennsylvania

Service and memberships

  • 2023 – 2024

    Graduate Student Council

    Member and information manager

    Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

  • 2023 – Present

    Center for Information Networks and Democracy

    Doctoral fellow and meeting administrator

    Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

  • 2022 – 2025

    Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication

    Doctoral fellow

    Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Skills and languages

Methods

Computational visual analysis, Natural language processing, Machine learning, Social media data collection, Survey and experiment design, Content analysis

Programming

Python, R, Git, HTML, CSS

Software

Gephi, Adobe Illustrator, GitHub, Stata

AI Tools and Deployment

Hugging Face Transformers, Ollama, OpenRouter, Proprietary LLM APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini), PyTorch

Languages

Spanish: native speaker, English: advanced (C2), French: intermediate (B2), German: intermediate (B1)