Member
Gregoire Burel
Research Fellow
+44 (0)1908 858219
I am a research associate and data scientist at the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) with over 10 years of experience applying Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques in domains such as misinformation detection, crisis event extraction and question answering.
I am currently investigating the spread of misinformation and fact-checks for the Co-Inform (coinform.eu) and HERoS (heros-project.eu) projects. I develop and maintain the Fact-checking Observatory (fcobservatory.org).
Over the years, my work has involved the development and application of machine learning techniques for the investigation of user behaviour in different settings (e.g. answering behaviour, energy consumption habits and emerging behaviour in emergency crises), the development of visualisation tools and platforms (e.g. energyuse.eu, Sparks Prism) and the creation of formal ontological models (e.g. DoRES, EUse,Veracity, Curio).
Keys: Data Science, Computational Social Science, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Social Media Analysis, Crisis Computing
Team: Harith Alani, Tracie Farrell, Miriam Fernandez, Martino Mensio, , Lara Piccolo, Paula Reyero Lobo
News
02 Feb 2026
12 Nov 2025
31 Jan 2025
22 Jan 2025
20 Nov 2024
Publications
Burel, G., Lisena, P., Daga, E., Troncy, R. and Alani, H. (2025). ClimateSense at CheckThat! 2025: Combining Fine-tuned Large Language Models and Conventional Machine Learning Models for Subjectivity and Scientific Web Discourse Analysis: Notebook for the CheckThat! Lab at CLEF 2025. In: CLEF 2025, Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum, Information Access Evaluation meets Multilinguality, Multimodality, and Visualization, In CheckThat! Lab, 09-12 Sep 2025, Madrid, Spain. https://oro.open.ac.uk/107353/.
Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2025). ClimaFactsKG: Towards an Interlinked Knowledge Graph of Scientific Evidence to Fight Climate Misinformation. In: 5th International Workshop on Scientific Knowledge: Representation, Discovery, and Assessment, 02 Nov 2025, Nara, Japan. https://oro.open.ac.uk/107352/.
Alani, H. and Burel, G. (2025). New Frontiers in Fighting Misinformation. arXiv https://oro.open.ac.uk/102444/.
Altoe, F., Burel, G., Pinto, S.M.G., Alani, H. and Pinto, H. (2024). Towards AI-mediated Meme Generation for Misinformation Correction Explanation. In: 1st Multimodal, Affective and Interactive eXplainable AI Workshop, MAI-XAI24 2024, 19 Oct 2024, Santiago de Compostela. https://oro.open.ac.uk/102051/.
Burel, G., Mensio, M., Peskine, Y., Troncy, R., Papotti, P. and Alani, H. (2025). CimpleKG: A Continuously Updated Knowledge Graph on Misinformation, Factors and Fact-Checks. In: ISWC 2024, 23rd International Semantic Web Conference, 11-15 Nov 2024, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. https://oro.open.ac.uk/101150/.
Burel, G., Tavakoli, M. and Alani, H. (2024). Exploring the impact of automated correction of misinformation in social media. AI Magazine, 45(2), pp. 227–245. https://oro.open.ac.uk/97963/.
Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2023). The Fact-Checking Observatory: Reporting the Co-Spread of Misinformation and Fact-checks on Social Media. In: The 34th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, 4-8 Sep 2023, Rome, Italy. https://oro.open.ac.uk/92622/.
Mensio, M., Burel, G., Farrell, T. and Alani, H. (2023). MisinfoMe: A Tool for Longitudinal Assessment of Twitter Accounts’ Sharing of Misinformation. In: UMAP '23: 31st ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, 26-29 Jun 2023, Limassol Cyprus. https://oro.open.ac.uk/90632/.
Pavón Pérez, Á., Fernandez, M., Al-Madfai, H., Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2023). Tracking Machine Learning Bias Creep in Traditional and Online Lending Systems with Covariance Analysis. In: WebSci '23: 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023, 30 Apr - 1 May 2023, Austin, TX, USA. https://oro.open.ac.uk/88769/.
Tavakoli, M., Alani, H. and Burel, G. (2023). On the Readability of Misinformation in Comparison to the Truth. In: Text2Story 2023, 02/04/2023, Ireland. https://oro.open.ac.uk/88556/.
Kwarteng, J., Farrell, T., Third, A., Burel, G. and Fernandez, M. (2023). Understanding Misogynoir: A Study of Annotators’ Perspectives. In: 15th ACM Web Science Conference 2023 (WebSci ’23), 30 Apr - 01 May 2023, Evanston, TX, USA. https://oro.open.ac.uk/88020/.
Alani, H., Burel, G. and Farrell, T. (2022). Elon Musk could roll back social media moderation – just as we’re learning how it can stop misinformation. The Conversation. https://oro.open.ac.uk/83189/.
Burel, G., Farrell, T. and Alani, H. (2021). Demographics and topics impact on the co-spread of COVID-19 misinformation and fact-checks on Twitter. Information Processing & Management, 58(6), https://oro.open.ac.uk/78748/.
Burel, G., Farrell, T., Mensio, M., Khare, P. and Alani, H. (2020). Co-Spread of Misinformation and Fact-Checking Content during the Covid-19 Pandemic. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Social Informatics Conference (SocInfo), 6-9 Oct 2020, Pisa, Italy. https://oro.open.ac.uk/71786/.
Khare, P., Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2019). Relevancy Identification Across Languages and Crisis Types. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 34(3), pp. 19–28. https://oro.open.ac.uk/61477/.
Khare, P., Burel, G., Maynard, D. and Alani, H. (2018). Cross-Lingual Classification of Crisis Data. In: 17th International Semantic Web Conference, 8-12 Oct 2018, Monterey, CA (USA). https://oro.open.ac.uk/57253/.
Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2018). Crisis Event Extraction Service (CREES) - Automatic Detection and Classification of Crisis-related Content on Social Media. In: 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, 20-23 May 2018, Rochester, NY, USA. https://oro.open.ac.uk/55139/.
Khare, P., Burel, G. and Alani, H. (2018). Classifying Crises-Information Relevancy with Semantics. In: Extended Semantic Web Conference (ESWC) 2018, 3-7 Jun 2018, Heraklion, Crete. https://oro.open.ac.uk/54361/.
Burel, G., Saif, H. and Alani, H. (2017). Semantic Wide and Deep Learning for Detecting Crisis-Information Categories on Social Media. In: 16th International Semantic Web Conference, 21-25 Oct 2017, Vienna, Austria. https://oro.open.ac.uk/51726/.
Burel, G., Saif, H., Fernandez, M. and Alani, H. (2017). On Semantics and Deep Learning for Event Detection in Crisis Situations. In: Workshop on Semantic Deep Learning (SemDeep), at ESWC 2017, 29 May 2017, Portoroz, Slovenia. https://oro.open.ac.uk/49639/.
