Catherine D’Ignazio
Associate Professor, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Who they work with
Categories
Catherine D’Ignazio is an associate professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is also Director of the Data + Feminism Lab which uses data and computational methods to work towards gender and racial equity. D’Ignazio focuses on feminist technology, data literacy and civic engagement. She has run reproductive justice hackathons, designed global news recommendation systems, created talking and tweeting water quality sculptures, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. With Rahul Bhargava, she built the platform Databasic.io, a suite of tools and activities to introduce newcomers to data science. Her 2020 book from MIT Press, Data Feminism, co-authored with Lauren Klein, charts a course for more ethical and empowering data science practices. Her 2024 book, Counting Feminicide: Data Feminism in Action (MIT Press) is an extended case study about grassroots data activism to end gender-related violence. Her research at the intersection of technology, design & social justice has been published in the Big Data & Society, the Journal of Community Informatics, and the proceedings of ACM SIGCHI and ACM FAccT. Her art and design projects have won awards from the Tanne Foundation, Turbulence.org and the Knight Foundation and exhibited at the Venice Biennial and the ICA Boston.
Selected Publications
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Gabriel, S., Han, J. X., Liu, E., Puri, I., So, W., Christia, F., Dahleh, M., D’Ignazio, C., Ghassemi, M., Hosoi, P., & Shah, D. (2024). “Advancing Equality: Harnessing Generative AI to Combat Systemic Racism.” An MIT Exploration of Generative AI.
- Ostrowski, AK, Zhang, J, Das, M, Breazeal, C, D’Ignazio, C, & Verma, A. “Design Justice Strategies for Design Education: Evidence and Recommendations From Syllabus Analysis.” Proceedings of the ASME 2023 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 6: 35th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM). Boston, Massachusetts, USA. August 20–23, 2023. V006T06A046. ASME.
- Saadi, JI, Das, M, Roeder, G, Ostrowski, AK, Lee, S, Santos, M, Breazeal, C, D’Ignazio, C, Yang, MC, & Verma, A. “Incorporating Social, Policy, and Ethical Considerations in Engineering and Design Education: an Examination of Barriers and Resources.” Proceedings of the ASME 2023 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference. Volume 6: 35th International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM). Boston, Massachusetts, USA. August 20–23, 2023. V006T06A019. ASME.
Media
- September 20, 2023: MIT News, Bringing design justice to the classroom and workplace
- Fostering ethical thinking in computing