Organizational Studies
How algorithms (re)produce inequality and mediate how we understand inequality
dnnorris@umich.edu
Science, Technology, and Society Program
About
Davon Norris is an LSA Collegiate Fellow and Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies. He is an economic sociologist who tries to understand how our tools for determining what is valuable, worthwhile, or good are implicated in patterns of inequality with an acute concern for racial inequality. Often, this means his work investigates the design, functioning, and use of a range of scores or ratings, from the less complex government credit ratings to the extremely complex algorithmic scores like consumer credit scores. By focusing on questions of valuation, his research speaks across an array of disciplines and brings into relief normative questions about the nature and possibility of ameliorating (racial) inequality and nurturing economic justice in the contemporary United States.
