Tamara Kneese

Timeline

1. 2006–2016

   Degrees and a research fellowship

   She earns a BA at Kenyon College in 2006, an MA in social sciences and anthropology at the University of Chicago in 2008, and a PhD in media, culture and communication at NYU in 2016. From 2015 to 2016, she is a Research Fellow at the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine.

2. By 2023

   USF, Intel and green software

   At the University of San Francisco, she is an assistant professor of media studies and director of Gender and Sexualities Studies; she later directs developer engagement on Intel’s Green Software team. In May 2023, the Green Software Foundation publishes its first State of Green Software report, with Kneese as lead researcher and author; she also serves on the foundation’s Policy Working Group.

3. 2023

   AIMLab and Death Glitch

   In 2023, she joins Data & Society as senior researcher and project director of the Algorithmic Impact Methods Lab (AIMLab). Yale University Press publishes her first book, Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond, in August 2023.

4. August 2024

   Carbon emissions in generative AI

   With Meg Young, she publishes “Carbon Emissions in the Tailpipe of Generative AI” in Harvard Data Science Review in August 2024. The article reviews evidence on large language models’ carbon and water costs and argues that machine-learning research should account for resource costs across the lifecycle and supply chain.

5. January 2025

   Data & Society’s climate program

   In January 2025, Data & Society launches its Climate, Technology, and Justice program with Kneese as its lead, and Meg Young succeeds her as AIMLab project director. She also serves as principal investigator of an NSF ReDDDoT planning grant to engage communities most impacted by AI infrastructure, including data centers.

6. 2025

   Notes Toward a Digital Workers’ Inquiry

   As part of the Capacitor Collective, she coauthors Notes Toward a Digital Workers’ Inquiry, published by Common Notions in 2025.

7. September 2026

   Practitioner Fellow at UVA

   In September 2026, she joins the University of Virginia’s Environmental Institute as a Practitioner Fellow for the 2026–2027 academic year. During the fellowship, she works with the UVA team to build a playbook for community engagement around data center impacts.

8. As of October 2026

   Senior Research Scientist at PAI

   She is a Senior Research Scientist (Qualitative) at Partnership on AI. She is writing about collective action in the technology industry around AI’s relationship to labor rights and environmental destruction.