Professor Anita Say Chan will give an invited lecture at the American University of Beirut (AUB) on October 23. The talk, part of the "Confronted with America" series hosted by the Center for American Studies and Research, will be moderated by Jihad Touma, founding director of AUB's School of Computing and Data Sciences.
Chan will discuss her new book, Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future, which identifies how the eugenics movement foreshadows the predatory data tactics used in today's tech industry. In her talk, Chan will explore how over a century ago, "feminist, immigrant, and other minoritized actors refused dominant research norms and founded alternative data practices whose methods and traditions continue to reverberate through global justice-based data initiatives today."
"The international reputation of the iSchool faculty travels widely," said Chan of her upcoming talk in Beirut. "I'm thrilled to get to speak on Predatory Data at a campus like AUB, which, like others, is growing a Computing and Data Science program in conversation with critical data/AI studies."
Chan is a professor in the iSchool and holds an appointment in the Department of Media and Cinema Studies in the College of Media. She directs the Community Data Clinic at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and iSchool, co-leads the Just Infrastructures initiative with faculty in the Grainger College of Engineering, and serves as a research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute. Chan received her PhD from MIT in the history and anthropology of science and technology studies.