Angèle Christin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and a Richard E. Guggenhime Faculty Scholar at Stanford University. She studies fields and organizations where algorithms and analytics transform professional values, expertise, and work practices.

David Pedulla is Professor of Sociology and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. His research agenda examines the consequences of nonstandard, contingent, and precarious employment for workers’ social and economic outcomes as well as the processes leading to race and gender labor market stratification. David’s research has appeared in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, as well as other academic journals and his book, Making the Cut, was published by Princeton University Press in 2020.

Ashley Mears is Professor and Chair of Cultural Sociology and New Media at the University of Amsterdam. Working primarily at the intersections of economic and cultural sociology and gender, I study how societies value people and things. Mears studies value and exchange in the context of labor, beauty, free stuff, elites, consumption, and social media, and I have written on theory and qualitative methods. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Le Monde, The Economist, NPR, the BBC, and Chinese Cosmo.  

Allison Pugh is a Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and the 2024-25 Vice President of the American Sociological Association. Pugh’s research and teaching focus on how people forge connections and find meaning and dignity at home and at work, and how economic trends – from job insecurity to commodification to automation – can make that harder. Her most recent book, The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton 2024), is based on a study of the standardization of work that relies on relationship.

Moderated by: Viviana Zelizer and Frederick Wherry