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A headshot of Ben Zhang

Ben Zhang

Biography

I study how data-driven and AI systems reconfigure identity, work, mobility, and power, along with their resulting sociotechnical implications. ​To achieve these insights, I employ a life-cycle-centered approach, leveraging ethnographic and qualitative research methods to examine the precarity, inequality, and invisible labor inherent in AI infrastructures — from development and implementation to governance. 

Drawing on my training in applied data science and sociocultural ethnography, my research focuses on three streams: (1) AI production and data infrastructures; (2) algorithmic mobility and identity transitions across social media; (3) labor, work and social justice in global computing. My empirical research has yielded several key conceptual contributions and design implications around algorithmic resistance and global platform governance. 

My work has appeared at venues including ACM CSCW GROUP, AAAI ICWSM, the CSCW Journal, Social Media & Society, 4S, and AoIR. My work is supported by awards and fellowships, including the International Institute, the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan, and the Weizenbaum Institute in Germany.

Pronouns

he/him

Areas of interest

Labor, Mobility, and Infrastructure 
AI production and data marketplace 
Platform and data governance

Honors & Awards

Predoctoral Fellow, Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan (2024-2025) 

Weizenbaum fellow, Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society (2024) 

University of Michigan International Institute Student Fellowship (2023) 

Lieberthal-Rogel Travel and Research Fellowship (2023) 

Graduate Student Instructor of the Year Award (2022) 

R. Weitzel Memorial Scholar, John R. Weitzel Memorial Award for Information Systems Research (2020)

Education

MS, in Applied Data Science, Syracuse University

B.A., in English and Literary Studies/Communication, University of Indianapolis