Stuart Geiger

Stuart Geiger is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego with appointments in the Department of Communication and the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute. He is also affiliate faculty in Science Studies, Computer Science and Engineering, Computational Social Science, and the Institute for Practical Ethics, where he leads the Working Group on Data Governance and Accountability. His research examines the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of quantification, data science, automation, and artificial intelligence. A central focus of his work is the role of AI and algorithmic systems in the governance and moderation of online platforms and communities, alongside broader concerns about fairness, accountability, privacy, labor, and institutional change. Trained as an ethnographer with a strong grounding in the humanities and social sciences, he employs a pluralistic methodological approach that combines qualitative, quantitative, and computational methods. Much of his prior research has focused on Wikipedia and other decentralized knowledge infrastructures, as well as scientific research networks and peer production systems. Before joining UC San Diego, he spent several years at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, where he served as a staff ethnographer and later a principal investigator leading research and education initiatives in data science studies.