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This event invites collective critique & imagination-toward technologies & institutions that center people, not just data.
Why AI Needs Feminism brings together feminist critical technologists Lauren Klein (Emory University) & Meredith Broussard (NYU) in conversation with Barnard's Saima Akhtar (Vagelos Computational Science Center) & Gabrielle Gutierrez (Neuroscience) to examine how algorithmic surveillance is reshaping everyday life-from predictive policing in New York neighborhoods of color to the data infrastructures sustaining global conflicts & occupations.
This conversation challenges the myth of data-driven decision-making as neutral progress & asks how feminist approaches grounded in care & accountability can offer paths toward refusal & repair.
Across higher education, including at Barnard, the rapid adoption of AI reflects wider struggles over power & control. Smart campus security systems & learning analytics promise efficiency & personalization while quietly expanding surveillance of movement, behavior, & intellectual labor. While AI can support learning & connection, it is also worth discussing how it reinforces existing hierarchies or privileges efficiency over care, trust, & human judgment.
The feminism AI needs, we insist, is not the mainstream feminism of representation or inclusion alone, but one that confronts how race, class, gender, & colonial power are built into technological systems. We ask: Who designs & benefits from these systems? Who bears their risks? And what would it mean to build technologies guided by care rather than oversight & control? This event invites collective critique & imagination-toward technologies & institutions that center people, not just data.
Accessibility
This event is free & open to the public. ASL interpretation will be provided. Registration is required. A light reception will follow the conversation.
Additional information is available on the BCRW event page.
Meredith Broussard is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University & the research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author ofMore Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, & Ability Bias in Tech(MIT Press, 2023), as well as the award-winning 2018 bookArtificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World.Her research focuses on artificial intelligence in investigative reporting, with particular interests in AI ethics & using data analysis for social good. She appears in the Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias, now streaming on Netflix. Her work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute of Museum & Library Services, & the Tow Center at Columbia Journalism School. A former features editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, she has also worked as a software developer at AT&T Bell Labs & the MIT Media Lab. Her features & essays have appeared in The NewYork Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Vox, & other outlets. Follow her on Twitter @merbroussard or contact her via meredithbroussard.com.
Lauren Klein is Professor of Data & Decision Sciences & English at Emory University, where she also directs the Digital Humanities Lab & the Atlanta Interdisciplinary AI Network. Her research brings together computational & critical methods to explore questions of gender, race, & justice, both in early America & today. Klein is the author (with Catherine D'Ignazio) of the award-winning Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020), & the editor (with Matthew K. Gold) of Debates in the Digital Humanities (Univ. of Minnesota Press), among other books & papers. Her next book, Data by Design: From the History of Visualization to the Future We Need, is forthcoming from the MIT Press in October 2026.
Saima Akhtar is the Interim Director of the Vagelos Computational Science Center (CSC) at Barnard College. She is a computational social scientist with a background in architecture. Prior to joining Barnard, Saima was a postdoctoral associate in the Yale University Department of Computer Science, where she managed digital cultural heritage preservation projects between the fields of computer science & architecture. Saima earned her PhD in architecture & urban studies from the University of California - Berkeley, & holds degrees from MIT & University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.
Gabrielle Gutierrez is an Assistant Professor in the Neuroscience & Behavior Department at Barnard College & an affiliate of the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at the Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University. Her work focuses on understanding the brain's fundamental operating principles: she develops mathematical models & theories that predict how neural circuits could work given the building blocks available to them, & uses these predictions to uncover the broader logic the brain uses to process information & guide behavior. Her research has led her to investigate various neural systems - from rhythmic pattern generation in the crustacean, to visual processing in the retina, to neural networks that control circadian rhythms. Her current research interests are focused on applying network science to connectome data to discover neuronal circuits in the understudied regions of the fruit fly brain. Gabrielle Gutierrez has a PhD in Neuroscience from Brandeis University. She did her graduate work in Eve Marder's lab. She received her bachelor's degree from Barnard College where she majored in Physics & minored in Applied Mathematics.
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