TAMARA KAY is Professor of Global Affairs and Sociology at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. She works on issues of trade, labor, social movements, globalization, culture, organizations, and global health (including reproductive health and rights).

Professor Kay is also Editor of Studies in Comparative International Development, a leading interdisciplinary journal on economic development (with a new online presence).

She began her academic career at Harvard where she was Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of Harvard's Transnational Studies Initiative. She also taught at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Kay received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 (where she helped build a union for graduate student workers) and spent two years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Her work engages two primary areas: transnational political economy, with a focus on labor and social movements, and; transnational culture, centered on how cultural processes work in a globalized world. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Harvard Medical School, among others.

NEWS

Professor Kay and her Co-Pi’s win a $1 million National Science Foundation grant:

"Bridging AI Inequality in Digitally-Mediated Gig Work."

This research project seeks to study and mitigate the growing inequality between platforms and workers in digitally-mediated gig work caused by artificial intelligence (AI). The project specifically targets app-based ridesharing, a newly emerging industry with more than 1.5 million drivers in the United States as of 2023. In ridesharing, concerns of inequality such as income disparities and workplace discrimination are frequently observed and reported. The project will first measure and characterize such AI inequality in rideshare platforms. Based on the derived insights, the research team will design, create, and deploy an AI-enabled data-driven decision-making support system for drivers to help them plan for their work in their best interests, with a long-term goal of bridging AI inequality in rideshare platforms. Outcomes from this project will also benefit other domains of on-demand gig work with algorithmic management, such as online freelancing and data annotation.

Copyright note: Tamara Kay owns the copyright to all photos of her and her work on this website. They may not be reposted or used in any way without her written permission.