More Info
+ My Interests
My research interests center around computing practices and technical expertise in policy-relevant settings, including:
- quantitiatve social science research
- government agencies
- advocacy organizations and public interest technology organizations
- technology companies
In particular, I'm thinking about how and when policy outcomes are measured, and the factors that mediate this process— including values, power, institutions, and law.
I'm also interested in datafication and quantification in policy-making and public administration. Within this area, my work explores state data collection practices, government procurement of algorithmic technologies, and the rise of "evidence-based policy" in academic public policy. I am currently interested in how various groups use data-driven technologies to gain legitimacy in policy spaces and how this in turn reshapes the types of knowledge, expertise, and values that are seen as a legitimate basis for policy interventions.
Selected work in progress
- Public Administration.
Amina Abdu & Abigail Z. Jacobs. In Burrell, J., R. Singh, and P. Davison (eds.), Keywords on the Datafied State. Data & Society. Forthcoming 2024.
- Legitimacy from the Administrative State to the Algorithmic State.
Amina A. Abdu & Abigail Z. Jacobs. Forthcoming at Privacy Law Scholars Conference 2024.
Publications
- Algorithmic Transparency and Participation through the Handoff Lens: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Adoption of Differential Privacy.
Amina A. Abdu*, Lauren M. Chambers*, Deirdre K. Mulligan & Abigail Z. Jacobs. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT). Forthcoming 2024.
Previously presented at Data (Re)Makes the World Conference 2023 and Privacy Law Scholars Conference 2023.
- An Empirical Analysis of Racial Categories in the Algorithmic Fairness Literature. [arXiv, popular writeup]
Amina A. Abdu, Irene V. Pasquetto & Abigail Z. Jacobs. ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT). 2023.
Other Writing
* denotes equal contribution
+ In a previous life...
I received my B.A. in mathematics and economics from Pomona College in Claremont, CA.
After graduating, I spent some time in academia doing empirical health economics research at the Harvard Kennedy School and then in tech policy working on antitrust advocacy at the Consumer Federation of America.
These experiences shaped my current interest in the role of computation in both social science scholarship and governance.
Recent Updates
- June 2024 - Our paper "Algorithmic Transparency and Participation through the Handoff Lens: Lessons Learned from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Adoption of Differential Privacy" was accepted to FAccT 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (joint work with Lauren Chambers, Deirdre Mulligan, and Abigail Jacobs).
- May 2024 - Excited to discuss our work "Legitimacy from the Administrative State to the Algorithmic State" at PLSC in Washington, DC (joint work with Abigail Jacobs).
- February 2024 - I gave a talk about racial classification practices in algorithmic fairness resarch at Northeastern's Network Science Institute (NetSI) in Boston, MA.
- August 2023 - I successfully defended my field prelim about quantification and legitimacy in U.S. public administration. I am now a Ph.D. candidate!
- + Older updates
- July 2023 - I am participating in a workshop on Sociotechnical Approaches to Measurement and Validation for Safety in AI hosted by Northwestern's Center for Advancing Safety of Machine Intelligence (CASMI) in Evanston, IL.
- June 2023 - I am excited to present our work on the adoption of racial categories in algorithmic fairness research at FAccT in Chicago, IL (joint with Irene Pasquetto & Abigail Jacobs). This is my first paper :-)
- June 2023 - We will be presenting our work on the Census Bureau's adoption of differential privacy at the Privacy Law Scholars Conference (PLSC) in Boulder, CO (joint with Lauren Chambers, Abigail Jacobs & Deirdre Mulligan).
- May 2023 - I am participating in a workshop on Methods for Inclusivity in Data Collection hosted by Partnership on AI. See the resulting whitepaper here!
- March 2023 - I am attending the Data (Re)Makes the World Conference in New Haven, CT. We will be presenting work on the Census Bureau's implementation of differential privacy (joint work with Lauren Chambers, Abigail Jacobs & Deirdre Mulligan).
- December 2022 - February 2023 - I am excited to join the Federation of American Scientists and Kapor Center's Racial Equity in Tech Policy Accelerator.
- November 2022 - I am participating in CSCW's Critical Public Interest Tech Workshop.
- November 2022 - I am giving a guest lecture in SI 110: Introduction to Information about data science methods and ethics.
- June 2022 - I am attending the Doctoral Consortium at FAccT in Seoul, SK.
- November 2021/February 2022 - I am participating (virtually) in the Everyday Misinformation workshop at UIUC.
- August 2021 - I started my Ph.D. at UMSI!
