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Ethics of data science
How values and assumptions enter datasets, models, and claims of objectivity.
Data ethics · Philosophy of data science · Information science
Did AI Win After All?
My recent work examines how theory, interpretation, and ethical judgment shape data science and artificial intelligence.
Professor, Penn State College of IST. After five years as Professor in Charge, I stepped down from the role to devote more time to teaching and research.
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About
I am a professor in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology. My recent scholarship brings philosophy of science, hermeneutics, and information ethics into direct conversation with data science and AI.
I study the assumptions embedded in data models, the consequences of treating data as theory-free, and the conditions under which technological inquiry can become more reflexive, responsible, and humane.
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Current inquiry
A critical approach to data science grounded in philosophy, interpretation, and ethics.
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The role of theory
Why data cannot be understood responsibly without conceptual and theoretical commitments.
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Hermeneutics and information
How interpretation helps explain meaning, difference, and communication across information systems.
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AI, power, and the data double
How computational representations reorganize identity, access, opportunity, and control.
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Rock Ethics Institute
2019
Looking for a More Reflexive Data Science
As a Faculty Fellow of Penn State’s Rock Ethics Institute, I developed a project that examines data science through the philosophy of science. The work questions the idea that data can speak without theory and asks how ethical evaluation becomes possible when scientific models, assumptions, and interpretations are made visible.
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Selected recent work
Publications and works in progress centered on data, knowledge, theory, and AI.
2022
Data Objects for Knowing
AI & Society
2021
Whether or When: The Question on the Use of Theories in Data Science
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
2019
Cyber-Human Systems of Thought and Understanding
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Current
Data Science: The Science of the Hyperreal
Manuscript under review
Current
Did AI Win After All?
Manuscript under review
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Recent milestones
2025
Ethics and compliance curriculum
Led development of a B.S. in Information Technology Ethics and Compliance.
Since 2022
Associate Editor
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.
2022
Excellence in teaching
Penn State Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Teaching.
2018
Excellence in teaching
George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching.
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Contact
College of Information Sciences and Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania