PeopleofSuperintelligence

Public voice

Ruha Benjamin

Ruha Benjamin is a sociologist who studies how technology reflects and reproduces inequality, and her 2019 book Race After Technology examines the racial hierarchies built into algorithms and automated systems. She earned a BA at Spelman College in 2001 and a sociology PhD at UC Berkeley in 2008, taught at Boston University from 2010 to 2014, and joined Princeton in 2014. Race After Technology won the 2020 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award, and in September 2020 she was named to the Real Facebook Oversight Board. Viral Justice followed in 2022 and Imagination: A Manifesto in 2024, the year she received a MacArthur Fellowship. She is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.

Born
1978
Works
40
Citations
1,841
h-index
15

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2001–2008

    Spelman and a Berkeley PhD

    She earns a BA in sociology and anthropology at Spelman College in 2001. She completes an MA in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2004 and a PhD in 2008.

  2. 2010–2014

    Assistant professor at Boston University

    She is an assistant professor of sociology at Boston University from 2010 to 2014 and spends 2012–2013 as a visiting faculty fellow in Harvard's Program on Science, Technology, and Society. Stanford University Press publishes her book People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier in 2013.

  3. 2014–2017

    Professor at Princeton

    She joins the Princeton faculty in 2014. In 2017, she receives Princeton's President's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

  4. 2019–2020

    Race After Technology

    Her book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code appears in 2019 and exposes the racial hierarchies and systems of social control embedded in seemingly neutral algorithms and automated systems. It earns the 2020 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award and the 2020 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize for Nonfiction.

  5. September 2020

    Real Facebook Oversight Board

    In September 2020, she is named one of about 25 experts on the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group formed to analyze and critique Facebook's content moderation decisions.

  6. 2022–2024

    Viral Justice and Imagination

    Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want appears in 2022 and wins the 2023 Stowe Prize. Imagination: A Manifesto, published in 2024, argues that policies and paradigms come from the narrow imagination of those who monopolize power and resources. In October 2024, the Los Angeles Review of Books publishes her essay "The New Artificial Intelligentsia" in its Legacies of Eugenics series, on how AI evangelists cloak their self-interest in humanistic concern.

  7. 2024

    A MacArthur Fellowship

    In October 2024, the MacArthur Foundation names her one of 22 fellows in its class of 2024, citing her work "illuminating how technology reflects and reproduces inequality and championing the role of imagination in social transformation." The award is $800,000, distributed over five years.

  8. As of October 2026

    Princeton professor and lab director

    She is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and founding director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab. In August 2026, she speaks at the Nyansa Futures conference in Accra, urging Africans to take a more active role in shaping the continent's future as artificial intelligence develops.

Career

  1. Since 2014Princeton UniversityAlexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies
  2. From 2020Real Facebook Oversight BoardMember
  3. 2012–2013Harvard UniversityVisiting faculty fellow
  4. 2010–2014Boston UniversityAssistant professor of sociology

Education

  1. 2008University of California, BerkeleyPhD in sociology
  2. 2004University of California, BerkeleyMA in sociology
  3. 2001Spelman CollegeBA in sociology and anthropology

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Informed Refusal2016 · Science Technology & Human Values · 265 citations
  2. Catching Our Breath: Critical Race STS and the Carceral Imagination2016 · Engaging Science Technology and Society · 191 citations
  3. Race After Technology2023 · Routledge eBooks · 181 citations
  4. People's Science2013 · Stanford University Press eBooks · 167 citations
  5. Racial Fictions, Biological Facts: Expanding the Sociological Imagination through Speculative Methods2016 · Catalyst Feminism Theory Technoscience · 152 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Princeton University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Princeton University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Princeton University. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Princeton University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Ruha Benjamin - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Ruha Benjamin - MacArthur Foundation macfound.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. About — Ruha Benjamin ruhabenjamin.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. Professor Ruha Benjamin Named Among 22 MacArthur Fellowship Recipients | Princeton Alumni Weekly paw.princeton.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. UC Berkeley Sociology Alumna Ruha Benjamin Wins MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant | Letters & Science ls.berkeley.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. While Facebook works to create an oversight board, industry experts formed their own | Princeton Weekly Bulletin pwb.princeton.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Ruha Benjamin — Center for Critical Race + Digital Studies criticalracedigitalstudies.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Ruha Benjamin | Los Angeles Review of Books lareviewofbooks.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Unlearn, imagine, build anew: 44th Parker Lecture challenges tech’s dominant narrative | Benton Institute for Broadband & Society benton.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Ruha Benjamin challenges Africa to shape its own AI future - MyJoyOnline myjoyonline.com. Checked 20 October 2026.