The world is on fire – and I’ve often been at a loss for how to constructively contribute to public discourse. For decades, I have shared knowledge gained through fieldwork to offer a different perspective on complex sociotechnical matters. Too often these days, I find myself banging my head against the wall while navigating the cacophony of anguish that is emerging in all directions. For better or worse, I chose this time to turn my attention locally. I have found joy trying to find my footing as a professor and think more directly about how to prepare the next generation. And amidst it all, I’ve also had a series of wins, which I thought I’d share.

• “The State’s Politics of ‘Fake Data'” is a new paper that I wrote with Chuncheng Liu which starts from the premise that “all data are fake, but some are useful.” We look at the various ways in which purportedly (and often pejoratively) so-called “fake” data serve a purpose. And we do it by comparing insights we gleaned from both Chinese and American bureaucrats. It’s a fun paper!
• My upcoming book has a title! – “Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census.” And I’m in the final throes of getting the book ready to share with all y’all. If all goes well, the book will be released in September! And thanks to Hervé Le Crosnier, it will be simultaneously launched in French! <grin> The lovely people at Columbia Journalism School and the Nielsen Foundation have also shortlisted my book for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize. And I’m starting to prep a book tour and some op-eds and other things so if you have ideas, please holler. If you want to support me, please pre-order the book from University of Chicago Press or Amazon. There’s no book cover yet (and I’m fascinated that there’s a page count given that there’s still some editing to go), but omg omg omg it’s starting to become more real!

While putting the finishing touches on the book, I’ve been working on three new research projects. I am super grateful to the Sloan Foundation for naming me as a 2026 Sloan Research Fellow to support this work.

• Political Economy of AI. I have multiple collaborations underway to grapple with the world-building project that is underpinning the contemporary AI project. Cornell Global Hubs is supporting one facet (so I’ll be coming to Edinburgh this summer). I also have two papers underway with amazing collaborators, an initiative at Cornell, and proposals out to a few venues to convene people. You’ll hear more on this shortly. So if this tickles your fancy, ping me!
• Participatory Privacy Protections. I’m working with a phenomenal team of scholars on an NSF-sponsored grant to reckon with what it takes to achieve meaningful participatory engagement when rolling out privacy-enhancing technologies like differential privacy in various data contexts. This is building on earlier work on the consequences of epistemic disconnects and divergent statistical imaginaries.
• Youth, Mental Health, and Tech. After years of avoiding doing new research on this topic, I’m working with an amazing team on an NIH-sponsored project to collect new data about young people’s relationship with tech, with mental health, and with their broader social world. Early focus groups are already super eye-opening. (Teaser: some youth see AI as yet-another example of how adults are trying to destroy their future.)

This semester, I’m going to keep chugging along on these different projects – while teaching “Theories to Think With” and “Trust & Safety in Online Platforms” – but I hope to have a lot more research and ideas to share shortly.

In the meantime, stay safe and protect your neighbors. And keep reading history… it’s a good reminder that this too shall change. (My book this week was Overthrow – which is basically the history of US’s obsession with regime change from the author who documented the CIA coup in Iran in 1953. Le sigh.)

PS: I also pay to maintain a newsletter at Ghost.io. Subscribe there to not miss anything!