Demian’s main research interest is meta-communication, especially in digital format, with a particular focus on emojis. Besides that, he is also interested in verbal irony (i.e., sarcasm), and its conveyance in text form.

Demian completed his BA in Psychology in Moscow at the University of Vygotsky in 2015. He earned his MA degree in Psycholinguistics at Tel Aviv University in 2021. The project supervised by Prof. Rachel Giora was aimed at testing cross-language sentence constructions that generate default sarcastic interpretations. 

In 2022, Demian moved to Australia and commenced a PhD in Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University under the supervision of Dr. Lisi Beyersmann, Dr. Signy Wegener, and Prof. Nenagh Kemp (University of Tasmania). His PhD project focuses on reading with emojis and involves the paradigms of priming, picture-word interference, eye-tracking, and EEGs.