Sociologist of data analytics and emerging technologies
Taylor M. Cruz, PhD studies the societal dimensions of data analytics and emerging technologies, with a strong focus on power, inequality, and social justice. Working at the intersection of medical sociology and science and technology studies (STS), she draws on qualitative and ethnographic methods to study how people work with technologies across social contexts. Her ethnographic research on emerging technologies has received numerous awards and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In addition to publishing in a range of journal outlets, she also co-created the critical science and technology studies (STS) and community-oriented zine AI for Whose Good? Lessons from Community Resistance to Automation at the Port of Los Angeles.
Taylor is Associate Professor of Sociology and Health Sciences at Northeastern University. Prior to relocating to Boston, she was Associate Professor at California State University, Fullerton where she founded the Health, Tech, and Society Lab to study issues in science, technology, and medicine affecting marginalized communities. She received her PhD in Sociology from University of California, San Francisco and remains an active affiliate with the UCSF Emancipatory Sciences Lab.
Recent scholarship:
“A Sociology of Artificial Intelligence: Inequalities, Power, and Data Justice”
“Social Interventions in Times of Crisis: Community Perceptions of Integrating Social Determinants and Equity into the COVID-19 Response”
“Moralizing Metrics: Discourses of Data and Equity in California’s Public Health Response to COVID-19”
