About

Brief Bio

Jenny L. Davis is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Endowed Chair and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University with a secondary appointment in the College of Connected Computing, Honorary Professor of Sociology at The Australian National University, 2024-2026 Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, Director of the Soc AI Lab at Vanderbilt University, and Founding Co-Director of Vanderbilt’s Computing + Society Program within the College of Connected Computing.

Research Overview

I work at the intersection of social psychology and technology studies, focusing on the ways social forces embed within and are affected by technological systems. My first book, How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things (MIT Press 2020), provides an operational framework specifying how technological design reflects and shapes individuals and societies. My focus now is primarily on AI and the algorithms that sit underneath, applying a sociological lens to the ways data-driven infrastructures infuse our social worlds. For more on AI in society, check out my papers on Affordances for Machine Learning and Algorithmic Reparation, the latter of which underpins a book (co-authored with Apryl Williams) titled “The Injustice of Fairness: Algorithmic Reparation and the Case for Redress” (UC Press, 2026).