Danah Boyd is a distinguished scholar and researcher renowned for her insightful contributions to understanding the intricate relationship between technology and society.
Danah Boyd is a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research. Her work there involves examining the intersection between technology and society.
Danah Boyd is the founder of Data & Society Research Institute, an organization focused on the social, technical, ethical, legal, and policy issues emerging from data-centric technological development. She served on its Board of Directors and was its president.
Danah Boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University.
Danah Boyd is a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University.
Danah Boyd is on the advisory board of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
Danah Boyd was a founding board member and former Director of Crisis Text Line, an organization that uses technology to assist people in mental health crises.
Danah Boyd is a trustee of the Computer History Museum.
Danah Boyd is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Danah Boyd was a former Trustee of the National Museum of the American Indian.
Danah Boyd was a former Director of the Social Science Research Council.
Danah Boyd worked for V-Day, an organization focused on ending violence against women and girls worldwide, helping to build an online community for activists.
Danah Boyd co-authored the paper 'Democracy's Data Infrastructure: The Technopolitics of the US Census' with Dan Bouk for the Knight First Amendment Institute.
Danah Boyd co-wrote 'Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe: Information Poverty, Information Norms, and Stigma' which was published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
Yale University Press published Danah Boyd's book 'It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens'.
Polity Press published 'Participatory Culture in a Networked Era,' co-authored by Danah Boyd.
Danah Boyd gave a keynote titled “Your Data is Being Manipulated” at the 2017 Strata Data Conference, presented by O’Reilly and Cloudera, in New York City.
Danah Boyd appeared in the 2008 PBS Frontline documentary "Growing Up Online," providing commentary on youth and technology.
Danah Boyd, born Danah Michele Mattas on November 24, 1977, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, has become a leading voice in the fields of technology and social media. Her academic journey began at Brown University, where she studied computer science, followed by a Master’s degree at the MIT Media Lab’s Sociable Media Group. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information in 2008, with her dissertation, ‘Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics,’ focusing on how teenagers utilize social media platforms like Facebook and MySpace. This early work laid the foundation for her career-long examination of youth and technology.
Boyd’s career is marked by significant roles both in academia and industry. She served as a fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In 2009, she joined Microsoft Research New England as a Social Media Researcher. A pivotal achievement was her founding of the Data & Society Research Institute in 2013, an organization dedicated to addressing the social, ethical, legal, and policy issues arising from data-centric technological development. She also authored the influential book, ‘It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens’ (2014), which critically examines the perceived threats of social media for young people, arguing for its role as a space for expression.
Her work has earned her numerous accolades, including being named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company in 2009 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011. Boyd is currently the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, maintaining her role as a partner researcher at Microsoft Research. Her ongoing research explores how contemporary social inequities relate to technology, with a particular focus on data legitimacy, exemplified by her work on the 2020 US Census. She continues to contribute to public discourse through papers, articles, and talks on topics such as media manipulation, algorithmic fairness, and data bias.
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