The PSS4DEMOCRACY project welcomes Liändrie Steffens as a new research associate

1 May 2026

As of May 1, 2026, Liändrie Steffens joins the project Public Spheres for Democracy  (PSS4DEMOCRACY) as a research associate and PhD candidate. 

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Stellenbosch University and a Master’s degree in Political Science with a specialisation in Applied Statistics from the University of Gothenburg. Her background sits at the intersection of political science, quantitative research, and data science.

Before joining the University of Hamburg, Liändrie worked as a research assistant at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and later as an independent research consultant and data analyst working with NGOs, private companies, and government agencies, where she managed full research cycles across a range of social and policy-related projects. She is also the author of Left Behind: The Employment Crisis Facing Persons with Disabilities in South Africa.

The PSS4DEMOCRACY project investigates which digital public spheres actually help people stay informed, understand politics, and participate in democracy. The project pioneers the creation of the technical and methodical conditions for transferring theoretically formulated models of public spheres into algorithmic news systems and subsequently test them in real-life usage situations. Thereby the project paves the way to a substantially new form of empirical research on public spheres. 

We are looking forward to working with Liändrie and welcome her to our team!