WORKSHOP SERIES
Systemic Racism
and Computation

Open to the MIT Community
Our Mission
Recent advances in computation and big data techniques have enabled major breakthroughs that have changed the way many of us live, learn, and interact with others. While the opportunities that computation has opened up are vast, they have been compromised by concerns over privacy, discrimination, misinformation, and cybersecurity. This workshop examines what can be learned about race and how systemic racism operates in the U.S. from harnessing and studying the role of big data and computation in the social sciences. The focus is on the U.S. experience with systemic racism, as a way to scope the very dynamic and voluminous line of inquiry in this field.
Areas of Focus

Racial Fairness
and AI
Anti-Racism and
Computational Media
Healthcare
Inequities
Race and
Policing
Racial
Capitalism
Systemic Racism
and Computation

Workshop Schedule
Wednesday May 5th, 1pm-3pm
Opening Remarks
Dean Melissa Nobles, Dean Dan Huttenlocher
Data, Computation, and Racial Capitalism
Priyanka deSouza, Jason Jackson
Encoding Race and Structural Racism: Philosophical Perspectives
Arden Ali, Sally Haslanger, Jerome Hodges, Lily Hu
Monday May 10th, 9am-11am
Race and Policing
Asya Magazinnik
Work in Progress presentation by Devavrat Shah's research group on Race and Policing
Wednesday May 12, 1pm-3pm
Making, Unmaking, and Hacking Race and Data: Views from Anthropology
Héctor Beltrán, Beth Semel, Marc Aidinoff, Stefan Helmreich, Heather Paxson
A Computational Media-based Approach to Supporting Antiracism and the Social Good
D. Fox Harrell, Danielle M. Olson
Monday May 17th, 9am-11am
Systemic Racism and the Administration of Elections in the United States
Charles Stewart III
Algorithmic Redistricting and Minority Representation
Zachary I. Schutzman
Wednesday May 19th, 1pm-3pm
Race and Health
Jasmine English, Fotini Christia, Evan Lieberman
Work in Progress presentation by Marzyeh Ghassemi on Race and Health
Our Presenters

