Book Talk | Danah Boyd | Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census
Join the Institute for Public Knowledge on Monday, November 30 (5:30-7:00 PM) for an event with Danah Boyd. She will discuss her book, Data Are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census with Meeta Anand, Joseph Salvo, and Thomas Wolf.
Danah Boyd is the Geri Gay Professor of Communication at Cornell University. Dr. boyd’s research focuses on the intersection of technology and society. Her latest book “Data are Made, Not Found: A Story of Politics, Power, and the Civil Servants Who Saved the US Census” is an ethnography of the US Census Bureau, Jenga politics, and the struggle to make democracy’s data in 2020. Her first monograph “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens” examines young people’s relationship to social media. Dr. boyd founded Data & Society, where she currently serves as an advisor. She is currently a fellow of AAAS, a 2026 Sloan Research Fellow, a non-residential fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a trustee of the Computer History Museum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the advisory boards of Electronic Privacy Information Center. She was also a founding director of Crisis Text Line, a mental health organization that serves people in crisis.
Meeta Anand has extensive experience in advocacy, strategic planning, and community engagement, having worked with organizations like The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The New York Immigration Coalition. With a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Master’s Degree from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, Meeta specializes in creating opportunities for social change and promoting equity.
Dr. Joseph Salvo is currently Chair of a 2030 Census National Working Group, whose purpose is to help ensure that the address list used for the next decennial census is accurate and complete for all areas of the nation. For more than three decades, Dr. Salvo served as Director of the Population Division at the New York City Department of City Planning, where he ushered the city through four decennial censuses, and most recently was a Fellow at the University of Virginia as part of a 2030 Census methods team. He has testified before Congress, been an advisor to the U.S. Census Bureau, served on multiple panels at the National Academy of Sciences, and worked as an expert in litigation related to the 2020 census. He has co-authored articles on settlement patterns of race/ethnic groups, census history and methods, and survey evaluation.
Thomas Wolf is the Brennan Center’s Director of Democracy Initiatives. An experienced attorney and strategist, Wolf leads major constitutional litigation and jurisprudence projects for the Democracy Program. He is the founder of the Historians Council on the Constitution and the Brennan Center’s Census Project. Wolf advises civil rights groups, academic experts, state and local governments, and others on legal strategy relating to democracy issues, particularly those with a high likelihood of U.S. Supreme Court review. Wolf’s articles, op-eds, and commentary on the law and democracy issues have appeared in major media outlets nationwide and globally. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Wolf was a member of the Supreme Court & Appellate Group at Mayer Brown LLP. He began his legal career as a clerk for Senior Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.