The Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity is pleased to welcome Safiya U. Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), to the Washington University campus as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar. Join us for a conversation with Dr. Noble for a conversation on race and computing.
Biography
Dr. Noble is an internet studies scholar and Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She holds affiliations in the School of Education & Information Studies, and is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford where she is a Commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG).
In 2021, she was recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow (also known as the “Genius Award”) for her ground-breaking work on algorithmic discrimination, which prompted her founding of a non-profit, Equity Engine, to accelerate investment in companies, education, and networks driven by women of color. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, entitled Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely-reviewed in scholarly and popular publications. She is the recipient of a Hellman Fellowship and the UCLA Early Career Award. In 2022, she was recognized as the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award recipient.
Her academic research focuses on the internet and its impact on society. Her work is both sociological and interdisciplinary, marking the ways that digital media intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, power, and technology. She is regularly sought out for her expertise on issues of algorithmic discrimination and technology bias by national and international press including The Guardian, the BBC, CNN International, USA Today, Wired, Time, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The New York Times, and a host of network news and podcasts. Her popular writing includes critiques on the loss of public goods to Big Tech companies, as featured in Noema magazine.
Event and registration information
This event will take place in-person. It is free and open to the public. A reception will immediately follow the event. Please register below.
Where: Umrath Lounge
When: Tuesday, October 18 at 4:00pm
Sponsors and Cosponsors
This visit is sponsored in part through funding from the Office of the Provost: Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program. Other cosponsors include the Department of African and African-American Studies, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, the Program in Film and Media Studies, the Center for Health Economics and Policy (CHEP), Center for Health Economics and Research, the Institute for Informatics (i2), and the Department of Medicine.