Dasha Pruss

Dasha Pruss is an assistant professor of Philosophy and Computer Science at George Mason University and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Previously, she was a 2023-2024 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center and a postdoctoral fellow in the Embedded EthiCS program at Harvard University. In 2023 she received her PhD in history and philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was a National Science Foundation fellow, and she holds a BS in computer science.

Dr. Pruss draws on interdisciplinary methods from critical data studies, feminist philosophy of science, and the qualitative social sciences to examine how AI systems shape (and are shaped by) their social contexts. Her research critically interrogates the social impacts of algorithmic decision-making systems promoted by ‘evidence-based’ reforms in the US criminal legal system. In 2024, she organized Prediction and Punishment: Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Carceral AI, which brought together scholars and activists from around the world to address technologies designed to police, incarcerate, surveil, and control human beings. Dr. Pruss is also an activist and has co-organized efforts to ban facial recognition and predictive policing in Pittsburgh.

Degrees

• PhD, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. 2023
• MA, History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh. 2020
• BS, Computer Science, University of Utah. 2016