March 26, 2025 — Data & Society (D&S) is pleased to welcome nine new affiliates, joining a network of affiliates and advisors who collaborate with D&S staff to realize a future where technological development is guided by equity and human dignity. All our affiliates share a commitment to advancing empirical, sociotechnical research as a means of understanding how technology interacts with social institutions and power dynamics, with a shared vision to ensure that tech is developed and deployed in the public interest.
“Collaborations with affiliates lead to stronger and more impactful outcomes for Data & Society programs and our field,” said Ania Calderon, managing director of strategy and engagement. “Their work aligns with D&S’s current research tracks, including Labor Futures, AI on the Ground, Trustworthy Infrastructures, and Climate, Technology, and Justice, and we are looking forward to creating a mutually beneficial partnership with this highly accomplished group.”
D&S affiliates may participate in funded research projects or actively develop future engagements and projects. Affiliates are encouraged to take part in programs and events at D&S that are outside of their main research field. They also receive access to D&S’s Slack community, where they are welcome to share and view opportunities, converse, and contribute ideas to the network. Previous and current affiliates have produced reports, primers, and participated in D&S-led events.
Formal nominations for affiliate status are made by current D&S staff and approved by senior leadership. Affiliate status is reviewed on a yearly basis. If you’re interested in learning more about our affiliate program or connecting with our network, contact [email protected].
The new affiliates are:
Sareeta Amrute is an anthropologist who studies race, labor, and class in global tech economies. She served as Data & Society’s inaugural director of research, and then as the founding director of the organization’s Trustworthy Infrastructures program, which explores emerging approaches to building trust online and the possibilities they set in motion. Sareeta is an associate professor of strategic design at Parsons, The New School. She holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago.
Omer Bilgin is an AI governance researcher who is deeply passionate about the intersection of ethics, emerging technologies, and democracy. He is currently pursuing a master of studies in practical ethics at the University of Oxford, where his research focuses on clarifying whether and in what ways modern technological innovations can help existing democratic practices better fulfil the core normative ideals of participatory democracy. His past research has investigated several critical areas in AI governance, including “responsibility gaps” arising from harms caused by autonomous systems, moral decision-making procedures in self-driving vehicles that face inevitable crash situations, patterns of global coordination and fragmentation in AI policy, and the integration of democratic inputs into AI development and governance efforts. Omer is part of the Oxford AI Society’s Safety and Governance team, through which he regularly organizes community events, and a co-founder of deliberAIde, an early-stage startup that is developing AI-powered tools designed to make face-to-face deliberative engagements more inclusive, efficient, and impactful. He served as a community note-taker for Data & Society’s 2024 Participatory AI Methods seminar series and led its closing session. Omer holds a bachelor of arts in philosophy from University College London.
Minsu Longiaru is a senior staff attorney for worker power at PowerSwitch Action, a national network of 21 organizing and advocacy groups working on economic justice, housing, and workers’ rights in cities and states around the country. She provides legal support and strategic thought partnership to organizing and policy campaigns that build worker power through the interaction of organizing, comprehensive campaigning, direct representation, impact litigation, and policy and administrative strategies. A particular focus of her work involves supporting grassroots, community, and worker-centered campaigns that address social justice issues intersecting with work and technology. Minsu has years of experience providing wide-ranging support to movements, community-based groups, and organizers. Most recently, she worked as a deputy attorney general with the state of California’s worker rights and fair labor section, addressing systemic business practices that undermine the working conditions of app-based workers, warehouse workers, and others. Minsu has also represented workers and labor organizations at a union-side law firm, held local and national leadership positions with grassroots workers centers, and served as a Skadden fellow and Fulbright García-Robles fellow. She holds a BA and JD from Harvard University.
John Edgar Lopez got his start as an assistant to feature film producers before moving on to cover film and the arts for Grantland, Vanity Fair online, The Los Angeles Times, Departures, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek among other publications. An alum of the CBS writers mentoring program and the Sundance Episodic Lab, John has written and produced for shows including Paramount Plus’s Strange Angle, Netflix’s Seven Seconds, and The Terminal List for Amazon.
Sanjay Pinto is a sociologist who studies drivers of job quality and strategies for building worker voice and power. His recent work at the intersection of technology and labor includes research addressing the impacts of worker surveillance in Amazon warehouses, the implications of AI for fashion models, and the ways digital tools are being used for worker organizing. Sanjay is a senior fellow at the Center for Urban Economic Development and a fellow at the Worker Institute at Cornell ILR. He is part of the Solidarity Resource collective and serves on the advisory boards of Co-op Rhody, the Model Alliance, and the Real Utopias project. He received a master of science degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and a PhD in sociology and social policy from Harvard University.
Lana Swartz is an associate professor of media studies and a Shannon Center mid-career fellow at the University of Virginia. She studies the pasts and futures of infrastructures, livelihoods, financial literacy, and consumer protection in the digital economy, and is currently writing a book on scams. Swartz’s 2020 book New Money: How Payment Became Social Media was named one of the “greatest tech books of all time” by The Verge. She has also published writing on the Diners Club Card, the early politics of bitcoin, blockchain dreams, central bank digital currencies, and ICO scams. Swartz has held fellowships with the Berggruen Institute, the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University, and the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, PBS Nova, TANK, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications, and she regularly speaks to academic, industry, and public audiences.
Zoë West is a senior researcher of worker rights and equity at the Worker Institute in the ILR School at Cornell University. For over 15 years, her research and education work has centered on labor and migration, with a particular focus on the low-wage economy, precarious work, and care work. Her research examines the structural roots of exploitation and precarity and explores how race, ethnicity, gender, and immigration status shape workers’ experiences. She also explores emerging models of policy, training, and collective representation. Zoë’s work relies on qualitative and participatory methods to contextualize workers’ lived experiences within broader systemic structures. Recent projects include studies on home care workers, including research on consumer-directed home care and financialization in the home care sector; standards-raising initiatives for domestic workers; and the impact of generative AI on workers in the fashion industry. Zoë holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Oxford.
David Gray Widder studies how people creating “artificial intelligence” systems think about the downstream harms their systems make possible, and the wider cultural, political, and economic logics which shape these thoughts. He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech, and earned his PhD from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. David’s recent research has been accepted to FAccT, Nature, CSCW, and Big Data & Society; his scholarly and activist work has appeared in Motherboard, MIT Technology Review, Wired, the Associated Press, and The New York Times. He previously conducted research at Intel Labs, Microsoft Research, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Sara Ziff is an award-winning activist and the founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, a nonprofit research, policy, and advocacy organization dedicated to advancing labor rights in the fashion industry. From creating legal protections for models against financial and sexual exploitation — including the misuse of AI — to calling for transparency and accountability across global supply chains, she has led efforts to advance workers’ rights and inject a labor consciousness into the fashion industry. As a survivor, Sara played an instrumental role in fashion’s Me Too movement by helping to expose industry abuses, supporting fellow survivors, and advancing survivor justice. She has received numerous honors, including the National Organization for Women’s Susan B. Anthony Award, the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Positive Social Influence Award, and France’s National Order of Merit. Before founding the Model Alliance, Sara worked as a fashion model and produced the feature documentary Picture Me. She received her bachelors degree from Columbia University and her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.