Dr. Safiya U. Noble is an internet studies scholar and Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as Co-Founder and Co-Director of UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She holds affiliations in the School of Education & Information Studies, and is a Research Associate at Oxford Internet Institute at University of Oxford where she is a Commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG).
In 2021, she was recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow for her ground-breaking work on algorithmic discrimination, which prompted her founding of Equity Engine to accelerate investment in companies, education, and networks driven by women of color. She is the author of the best-selling book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press). She is the recipient of a Hellman Fellowship and the UCLA Early Career Award. In 2022, she was the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award recipient.
Her academic research focuses on the internet and its impact on society. Her work is both sociological and interdisciplinary, marking ways that digital media intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, power, and technology.
Dr. Noble is a board member of Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, serving those vulnerable to online harassment, and of Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, America’s Black think tank.