Dr. Safiya Noble

Dr. Safiya Noble is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of the inaugural NAACP-Archewell Digital Civil Rights Award, and author of the highly acclaimed Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press). She is an internet studies scholar and David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the Faculty Director for the Center on Race & Digital Justice and the Co-Director for the Minderoo Initiative on Tech & Power, and where she Co-Founded the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She and her work have been featured in Time, The Guardian, the BBC, CNN International, Wired, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, among many others. Her talks and research focus on the ways that digital media impacts our lives and intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, and technology. Learn more at safiyaunoble.com

ChristinaJ M.Eng. ’06

ChristinaJ is a first generation Indian American. She has a Bachelors in Computer Engineering from Drexel University and a Masters in Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. She began her career as a Systems Engineer and then Project Manager at BAE Systems, a large U.S. government defense contractor, where she earned the Meritorious Performer Award and led her team to win the Chairman’s Gold Award in Innovation, the highest award in the global company. In collaboration with Harvard University, she has been published in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

ChristinaJ currently lives in Colorado with her family and is the Chair of "Taste of CA" a large multicultural event celebrating each other and our differences. ChristinaJ helps others launch their tech ideas through angel investing. As a general partner with XIA Capital, she explores forward-thinking approaches to AI and sustainability.

A passion for the arts from a young age and classical training in Indian dance led ChristinaJ to found and operate two dance schools, in addition to choreographing, teaching, and performing across the world. She has also won several pageants including Miss India NJ, Miss Millennium Beauty Queen and Miss Asia America and starred in the first Telugu movie filmed in the U.S. An award-winning author, ChristinaJ's debut children’s novel Royal Planet is an intersectional and action-packed adventure. Learn more at christinaj.com