Publications
2026
Algorithmic Realism: Data Science Practices to Promote Social Justice
MIT Press (October 6, 2026)
More Details | MIT Press Page
Deconstructing AI Hype: A Playbook for Resistance
with Shreya Chowdhary and Justine Zhang
AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES)
Algorithm Auditing Policies Rest on Flawed Assumptions About Public Sector Systems
with Nel Escher and Nikola Banovic
Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Movement Data Science: Practices for Working in Solidarity with Social Justice Efforts
with Shreya Chowdhary
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW)
PDF
Designing for Proactive Accountability: Lessons on Governing Technology from Detroit’s Food Sovereignty Movement
with Jared Lee Katzman and Tawanna R. Dillahunt
Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
2025
What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?
with Terry Nguyen
University of Michigan Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
PDF | Publisher’s Version | Press Release
2024
Code-ifying the Law: How Disciplinary Divides Afflict the Development of Legal Software
with Nel Escher, Jeffrey Bilik, and Nikola Banovic
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
2022
Escaping the Impossibility of Fairness: From Formal to Substantive Algorithmic Fairness
Philosophy & Technology
PDF | Publisher’s Version
The Flaws of Policies Requiring Human Oversight of Government Algorithms
Computer Law & Security Review
Future of Privacy Forum Privacy Papers for Policymakers Award
PDF | Publisher’s Version
“If it didn’t happen, why would I change my decision?”: How Judges Respond to Counterfactual Explanations for the Public Safety Assessment
with Yaniv Yacoby, Christopher L. Griffin, and Finale Doshi-Velez
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP)
PDF | Publisher’s Version | arXiv (including appendix)
2021
Algorithmic Risk Assessments Can Alter Human Decision-Making Processes in High-Stakes Government Contexts
with Yiling Chen
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Data Science as Political Action: Grounding Data Science in a Politics of Justice
Journal of Social Computing
PDF | Publisher’s Version
The Contestation of Tech Ethics: A Sociotechnical Approach to Ethics and Technology in Action
Journal of Social Computing
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Technology Ethics in Action: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Special Issue of the Journal of Social Computing
More Details | PDF | Publisher’s Version (Part 1) | Publisher’s Version (Part 2)
Reply: Hermeneutical injustice in sociotechnical systems
Journal of Cross-disciplinary Research in Computational Law
PDF | Publisher’s Version
2020
Algorithmic Realism: Expanding the Boundaries of Algorithmic Thought
with Salomé Viljoen
Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT*)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
The False Promise of Risk Assessments: Epistemic Reform and the Limits of Fairness
Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT*)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Risky Reforms: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Algorithms as Tools for Social Change
Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Algorithm-in-the-Loop Decision Making
with Yiling Chen
AAAI-20 Sister Conference Track
PDF | Publisher’s Version
2019
The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future
MIT Press
More Details | MIT Press Page | Open Access Edition
The Principles and Limits of Algorithm-in-the-Loop Decision Making
with Yiling Chen
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW)
Best Paper Award
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Disparate Interactions: An Algorithm-in-the-Loop Analysis of Fairness in Risk Assessments
with Yiling Chen
Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT*)
Best Interdisciplinary and Technical Paper Award
PDF | Publisher’s Version
“Good” isn’t good enough
NeurIPS Joint Workshop on AI for Social Good
Best Paper Award (Public Policy Track)
PDF | Poster
2018
“Fair” Risk Assessments: A Precarious Approach for Criminal Justice Reform
5th Workshop on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning (FAT/ML; ICML workshop)
PDF
The Myth in the Methodology: Towards a Recontextualization of Fairness in Machine Learning
with Lily Hu
Machine Learning: The Debates (ICML workshop)
PDF
2017
Modeling contagion through social networks to explain and predict gunshot violence in Chicago, 2006 to 2014
with Thibaut Horel and Andrew V. Papachristos
JAMA Internal Medicine
PDF | Supplement PDF | Publisher’s Version
Open Data Privacy: A risk-benefit, process-oriented approach to sharing and protecting municipal data
with Gabe Cunningham, Ariel Ekblaw, Paul Kominers, Andrew Linzer, and Susan Crawford
Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Excavation and aggregation as organizing factors in de novo construction by mound-building termites
with Paul Bardunias, J. Scott Turner, Radhika Nagpal, and Justin Werfel
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
PDF | Supplement PDF | Publisher’s Version
2015
Mining Administrative Data to Spur Urban Revitalization
with Alejandra Caro, Matthew Conway, Robert Manduca, Tom Plagge, and Abby Miller
Proceedings of the 21st ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD)
PDF | Publisher’s Version
Testing and Quantifying Collective Intelligence
Collective Intelligence
PDF