Danah Boyd

danah boyd is an incoming Professor of Communication at Cornell University, a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology and society, with an eye to how structural inequities shape and are shaped by technologies. She is currently conducting a multi-year ethnographic study of the US census to understand how data are made legitimate. Her previous studies have focused on media manipulation, privacy practices, social media, and teen culture. Her monograph "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" has received widespread praise. She founded the research institute Data & Society, where she currently serves as an advisor. She is also a trustee of the Computer History Museum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the advisory board of Electronic Privacy Information Center. She received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University, a master's degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Ph.D in Information from the University of California, Berkeley.