danah boyd

Nancy Baym

Mary L. Gray

Kate Crawford

Tarleton Gillespie

The Social Media Collective (SMC) was a network of social science and humanistic researchers, part of the Microsoft Research labs in New England and New York. It included full-time researchers, postdocs, interns, and visitors. Our primary purpose was to bring a sociotechnical perspective to the critical issues of our time. We used empirical and critical methods to study the social, political, and cultural dynamics that shape technologies and their consequences. Our work spanned several disciplines: anthropology, communication, economics, information, law, media studies, women’s studies, science & technology studies, and sociology.

Examples of our research concerns included: 

• What are the social and cultural issues arising from data-centric tech development?
• How does the use of social media affect relationships between artists and audiences in creative industries and what does that tell us about the future of work?
• What are the politics, ethics, and policy implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning? How do machine learning techniques interpret and represent the social world?
• What are the cultural, political, and economic implications of crowdsourcing as a new form of semi-automated, globally-distributed digital labor?
• What kind of public obligations are social media platforms now facing, and how is this shifting how they approach policing user content and behavior?
• What kinds of biases can be embedded in algorithms, how should public concerns shape algorithmic design?
• How do people with minimal internet access use mobile media to negotiate marginalization and increase social mobility?

You can find an updated list of our scholarly work here. We regularly contributed to the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), The International Communication Association (ICA), The American Anthropological Association (AAA), the American Sociological Association (ASA), and The Society for the Social Study of Science (4S). We were also connected with the Data & Society Research Institute, founded by danah boyd in 2014.

We also aimed to play a role in shaping public conversations about the intersection of technology and society through public speaking and commentary. We wrote numerous op-eds in venues like the New York Times, Wired, and the Atlantic. We also gave public lectures at a variety of venues including World Economic Forum, O’Reilly’s Strata Conference, the Federal Trade Commission, and European music industry conventions. Our efforts were intended to help people get past mistaken assumptions and persistent fears, to better understand the role of technology in society.

Permanent Researchers

• danah boyd
• Nancy Baym
• Kate Crawford
• Tarleton Gillespie
• Mary L. Gray

Postdoctoral Researchers

• Mike Ananny, University of Southern California
• Solon Barocas, Microsoft Research / Cornell University
• Sarah Brayne, Stanford University
• Niall Docherty, University of Sheffield
• Kevin Driscoll, University of Virginia
• Zoë Glatt, London School of Economics
• Dan Greene, University of Maryland
• Megan Finn, American University
• Jessa Lingel, University of Pennsylvania
• Chuncheng Liu, Northeastern University
• Elena Maris, University of Illinois, Chicago
• Alice Marwick, Data & Society / University of North Carolina
• Kate Metcalf – Postdoctoral Researcher
• Andres Monroy-Hernandez, Princeton University
• Dylan Mulvin, London School of Economics
• Karina Rider, University of Virginia
• Luke Stark, Western University
• Lana Swartz, University of Virginia
• Emily Tseng – University of Washington

Research Assistants

• Andrea Alarcon
• Parker Bach
• Rachel Bergmann
• Heather Casteel
• Elizabeth Fetterolf
• Dylan Field
• Sarah T. Hamid
• Rebecca Hoffman
• Manasa Jagadeesh
• Alex Leavitt
• Kate Miltner
• Christopher Persaud
• Steven Schirra
• Ryland Shaw
• Sarah Snyder
• Mitali Thakor

Interns

2026

• Spencer Kaplan (PhD from Yale University)
• Yitong Liu (PhD from Brown University)
• Julien Porquet (PhD from the University of Cambridge)

2025

• Talia Berniker (PhD from Cornell University)
• Syboney Biwa (PhD from University of Oklahoma)
• Cecile Meier-Scherling (PhD from Brown University)
• Leona Nikolić (PhD from Concordia University)

2024

• Jordan Ali (PhD from Cornell University)
• Emillie de Keulenaar (PhD from University of Groningen)
• Tajanae Harris (PhD from University of Colorado, Boulder)
• Zaidat Ibrahim (PhD from Indiana University)
• Nancy Salem (PhD from Oxford Internet Institute)
• Rachel Warren (PhD from UC Irvine)

2023

• Negin Alimohammadi (PhD from University of Washington)
• Maria Angel (PhD from University of Washington)
• Samantha Dalal (PhD from University of Colorado, Boulder)
• Sarah Edwards (PhD from University of Wisconsin, Madison)
• Aurélie Petit (PhD from Concordia University)
• CJ Reynolds (PhD from Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

2022

• Benjamin Ale Ebrahim (PhD from Indiana University)
• Negin Alimohammadi (PhD from University of Washington)
• Titus Bang (BA from Harrisburg University of Science and Technology)
• Daniel Delmonaco (PhD from University of Michigan)
• Margot Hanley (PhD from Cornell Tech)
• Chuncheng Liu (PhD from University of California, San Diego)
• Colten Meisner (PhD from Cornell University)
• Priyanka Nanayakkara (PhD from Northwestern University)
• Christine Nyawaga (PhD from Wayne State University)
• Jayshree Sarathy (PhD from Harvard University)
• Emily Tseng (PhD from Cornell Tech)
• Karis K. Wilson (PhD from University of Oklahoma)
• Stephen Yang (BA from Cornell University)

2021

• Andrea Alarcon (PhD from University of Southern California)
• Benjamin Ale Ebrahim (PhD from Indiana University)
• Kristen Bowen (PhD from University of North Carolina)
• Tristan Gohring (PhD from Indiana University)
• Calvin Liang (PhD from University of Washington)
• Katherine Lou (PhD from Harvard University)
• Muira McCammon (PhD from University of Pennsylvania)
• Rida Qadri (PhD from MIT)
• Kate Sim (PhD from Oxford internet Institute)
• Finda Williams (PhD from University of Michigan)

2020

• Anna Gibson (PhD from Stanford University)
• Tristan Gohring (PhD from Indiana University)
• Amber Hamilton (PhD from University of Minnesota)

2019

• Anna Banchik (PhD from University of Texas, Austin)
• Jabari Evans (PhD from Northwestern University)
• Nina Medvedeva (PhD from University of Minnesota)
• Gili Vidan (PhD from Harvard University)

2018

• Robyn Caplan (PhD from Rutgers University)
• Michaelanne Dye (PhD from Georgia Tech)
• Penny Trieu (PhD from University of Michigan)

2017

• Ysabel Gerrard (PhD from University of Leeds)
• Elena Maris (PhD from University of Pennsylvania)

2016

• Stefanie Duguay (PhD from Queensland University of Technology)
• Caroline Jack (PhD from Cornell University)
• Shannon McGregor (PhD from University of Texas, Austin)
• Aaron Plasek (PhD from Columbia University)
• Ming Yin (PhD from Harvard University)

2015

• Ifeoma Ajunwa (PhD from Columbia University)
• Stacy Blasiola (PhD from University of Illinois at Chicago)
• Aleena Chia (PhD from Indiana University)
• J. Nathan Matias (PhD from MIT)
• Nick Seaver (PhD from UC Irvine)

2014

• Tressie McMillan Cottom (PhD from Emory University)
• Luke Stark (PhD from New York University)
• Katrin Tiidenberg (PhD from University of Tallinn)
• Kathryn Zyskowski (PhD from University of Washington)

2013

• Jade Davis (PhD from University of North Carolina)
• Tero Karppi (PhD from University of Turku)
• Jolie Matthews (PhD from Stanford University)
• Josh McVeigh-Schultz (PhD from University of Southern California)

2012

• Jed Brubaker (PhD from UC Irvine)
• Airi Lampinen (PhD from Helsinki Institute for Information Technology)
• Jaroslav Švelch (PhD from Charles University in Prague)
• Shawn Walker (PhD from University of Washington)

2011

• Jazmin Gonzalez-Rivero (HS Intern)
• Germaine Halegoua (PhD from University of Wisconsin, Madison)
• Dunia Kassay (HS Intern)
• Jessa Lingel, (PhD from Rutgers University)
• Laura Norén (PhD from New York University)
• Sonya Vohra (HS Intern)

2010

• Amelia Abreu (PhD from University of Washington)
• Jazmin Gonzalez-Rivero (HS Intern)
• Andres Monroy-Hernandez (PhD from MIT)
• Omar Wasow (PhD from Harvard University)

2009

• Scott Golder (PhD from Cornell University)
• Alice Marwick (PhD from New York University)
• Sarita Yardi (PhD from Georgia Tech)

Faculty Visitors (long-term)

• Alessandro Acquisti (Carnegie Mellon)
• André Brock (University of Michigan)
• Jean Burgess (Queensland University of Technology)
• Beth Coleman (MIT)
• Nick Couldry (London School of Economics)
• Angèle Christin (Stanford University)
• Tawanna Dillahunt (University of Michigan)
• Judith Donath (Harvard Berkman Center)
• Paul Dourish (UC Irvine)
• Nicole Ellison (Michigan State University)
• Kishonna Gray (University of Illinois Chicago)
• David Hesmondhalgh (University of Leeds)
• Eszter Hargittai (Northwestern University)
• Henry Jenkins (USC)
• Sonia Livingstone (LSE)
• Annette Markham (Aarhus University)
• Sharif Mowlabocus (Fordham University)
• Susanna Paasonen (University of Turku, Finland)
• Desmond Patton (Columbia University)
• Jonathan Sterne (McGill University)
• Tom Streeter (University of Western Ontario)
• TL Taylor (MIT)
• Siva Vaidhyanathan (University of Virginia)