Safiya Noble, Ph.D.

Bio

Dr. Safiya Noble is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Information Studies where she serves as the Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, and holds appointments in African American Studies and Gender Studies. Professor Noble is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, and a Commissioner for the Oxford Commission on AI and Good Governance.

Professor Noble 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. She is the  recipient of a Hellman Fellowship and the UCLA Early Career Award, and her academic research focuses on the design of digital media and their impact on society. She is regularly quoted 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, to name a few. Safiya is an editorial board member of several academic journals and advisory boards and holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.A. in Sociology from California State University, Fresno. Her work is both sociological and interdisciplinary, marking the ways that digital technology  and AI intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, and power.