Jenny Davis

Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair
Professor of Sociology
Director of Graduate Studies

Jenny L. Davis is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University, with an Honorary Professorship at the Australian National University. She works at the intersection of social psychology and technology studies, focusing on the ways social forces embed within and are affected by, technological systems. Her book, How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things (MIT Press 2020), provides an operational framework specifying how technological design reflects and shapes individuals and societies. With particular attention to AI, big data, and algorithmic systems, Jenny maintains active collaborations within and outside of academia, applying a sociological lens to the ways data-driven infrastructures infuse our social worlds. For more on AI in society, check out her work on Affordances for Machine Learning and Algorithmic Reparation.

Jenny is co-director of VU’s AI Grand Challenge, holds active roles in the Fairness Accountability and Transparency (FAccT) and AI Ethics and Society (AIES) communities, and is a 2024-2026 Fellow with the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). She is Past Chair of the Communication Information Technologies and Media Sociology section of the American Sociological Association (CITAMS), and former Deputy Director of the Australian National University’s Humanising Machine Intelligence Program (HMI). 

X/Twitter: @Jenny_L_Davis