In 2019, D4BL chose to close our conference with a session entitled “Who is a Movement Scientist?” This question was intended to inspire our community: to help them see themselves as implementers with the tools and ability to demand and create the change Black people deserve.
The Data for Black Lives movement has been growing for the past seven years. Our network has reached 40,000 members, supported grassroots organizing in six regional hubs, advanced local and national campaigns, launched a cultural programming series, and influenced a rapidly developing field of research on human rights in the age of AI. Along the way, we’ve supported and encouraged the development and advancement of Movement Scientists.
A Movement Scientist is a person who uses data as a tool for social change, challenging systems of oppression and providing empowering alternatives. Movement Scientists possess the skills, vision, creativity, and empathy to navigate complex technology in various settings. They utilize tools like data visualization, statistical modeling, and crowd-sourcing to challenge discriminatory uses of data and algorithms and to build a future where data and technology are used for good.
Today, we are overjoyed to announce—after years of planning and many months of interviews, assessments, and deliberations—the first cohort of D4BL Movement Scientist Fellows. These fellows are critical practitioners who center issues of liberation, equity and justice in the creation and deployment of emerging technologies. At a time when tech dollars often fund extractive and exploitative endeavors, we look beyond a return on monetary investment to focus instead on community investment. We are proud to formally announce our 2024–2025 fellows and their projects.
The D4BL Movement Scientist Fellowship is a 12-month program designed to support the leadership and impact of five fellows and their innovative projects. Each fellow is awarded $50,000 to advance their research to reach Black communities in the US and globally. Throughout the program, we provide guidance, technical assistance, monetary resources, and a platform for our fellows, providing them with access to our extensive network and industry-leading mentors.
Look out for upcoming opportunities to engage with the fellows and their work at the D4BL III conference this November in Miami. We’d also like to thank the Wikimedia Foundation’s Knowledge Equity Fund for their critical support of the fellowship this inaugural year.
Avriel Epps is a computational social scientist and PhD at Harvard, specializing in the impact of bias in predictive technologies on human development. With an M.S. in Data Science from Harvard and support from the Ford Foundation and National Center on Race and Digital Justice, Epps’s research examines the impact of algorithmic design on youth beliefs. Formerly a visiting research fellow at Spotify and an ed-tech founder, she’s worked with Google, TikTok, and various institutions on issues of algorithmic fairness. She has published in academic and popular outlets, including The Atlantic, and is featured in the PBS documentary TikTok, Boom.
Project: JusticeGPT
Epps leads AI4Abolition, an algorithmic justice organization working to build community power with and around artificial intelligence while working toward just alternatives to carceral (AI) systems. The organization’s flagship project, JusticeGPT, focuses on creating a data-driven platform that integrates transformative justice principles to facilitate conflict resolution, harm reduction, and healing among BIPOC systems-impacted youth. Through collaborations with transformative justice practitioners and organizations, AI4Abolition is designing an evidence-based tool that communities can use to repair harm, center accountability, and offer healing without involving carceral state-sponsored systems.
Bianca Kremer is an assistant professor and project leader at the Faculty of Law of IDP University (Brazil), where she teaches Digital Rights and New Technologies Regulation for the undergraduate and graduate Programs. A consistent thread running through her research agenda is the mitigation of algorithmic bias and discrimination—and the role that the law has to play in that clash. Her PhD analyzes how automated systems can perpetuate and/or increase racism and sexism in multiple spheres, and her research to date deals with developing anti-discrimination methodologies for AI applications involving biometric technologies.
Project: Economic losses induced by algorithmic racism in Brazil
Kremer is investigating the economic losses in Brazil caused by algorithmic racism in the platform economy. By collecting socioeconomic data and indicators, Kremer seeks to unveil the correlation between Brazil’s technological inefficiency, underdevelopment, and the reproduction of contemporary forms of racism in new technological systems and computational methodologies. Her research analyzes the extent to which machine learning algorithms in the platform economy contribute to the exclusion of the Black population from various decision-making processes, leading to technological and productive regression driven by racism. By highlighting how algorithmic racism hampers Brazil’s global productive sophistication, economic complexity, technical capacity, and workforce scalability, Kremer’s work focuses on raising indicators of the economic losses motivated by algorithmic racism—particularly in platform labor and the data-driven economy.
Guillermo Akapo Bisoko, of Equatoguinean origin, is a specialist in Afro-Latin American and Caribbean Studies at The Afro-Latin American Research Institute (ALARI) at Harvard University. He is one of the coordinators of the first anti-racist, pan-Africanist and decolonial communication and journalism platform in Spain, Blvck Pvper. Akapo Bisoko is an anti-racist activist with extensive experience in different social movements in Spain. He has been active in spaces such as Sos Racismo Madrid, La Assembly Antiracista, and CNAAE- Comunidad Negra Africana y Afrodescendientes de España, and is currently part of the Tarragona chapter of the EqualHealth Campaign Against Racism.
Project: Compilation of data on the impact of the Spanish media on Black communities, reproduction of hate speech, racism, and the role of justice in Spanish and Black communities
Akapo Bisoko is at the helm of Blvck Pvper, a digital journalistic project for the community. This initiative works to eliminate racial and other forms of discrimination, promoting social well-being, education, and public health for all. Blvck Pvper also focuses on preserving the historical memory of the Black African community, Afro-descendants, and other diverse populations in Spain. The project strives to ensure the effective visibility of these communities in all public spheres of Spanish society, understanding that telling their stories is a political act, and recognizing the importance of doing so from an Afro-centered digital media perspective.
Dr. Kilan C. Ashad-Bishop is a biomedical scientist and advocate for inclusion working at the intersection of science, health, and society. She is a proud alumna of Morgan State University, where she earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology, and the University of Miami, where she earned her PhD in Cancer Biology. Kilan focuses her transdisciplinary research and service portfolio on the influence of social and environmental factors on cancer disparities. Guided by a strong belief in the transformative power of equity and inclusion in health, science, and society, Dr. Ashad-Bishop champions the responsibility of science (and scientists) in driving positive social change.
Project: Developing a National Dashboard & Visualization Tool for Climate Gentrification
Ashad-Bishop is leveraging publicly available national data to create the first national database and visualization tool for flood-related climate gentrification risk at the neighborhood level across the United States. This project uses data from the US Census American Community Survey to operationalize gentrification based on changes from 2010–2015 and 2015–2020 in racial composition, income, education, and housing costs. The project also utilizes environmental data on green infrastructure from the US Geological Survey, and flood risk data from the FEMA National Risk Index. By centralizing and merging these datasets, Ashad-Bishop aims to create the first national visualization tool for assessing flood-related climate gentrification risk.
Zakiya Sankara-Jabar is a leading figure in the movement for educational justice in the United States by advocating for students and empowering parents. Zakiya’s tenacious spirit, insatiable curiosity and organizing acumen have elevated her from Ohio’s leading voice eradicating educational inequities to a national leading voice equipping Black parents with tools to drive sustainable change on a local level. Zakiya came to organizing, advocacy, and policy work organically as a parent shining a light on harmful school discipline policies that disproportionately impact Black students and their families in Ohio and now has worked in communities of all sizes across the country sharing tools, strategies and her story for working class parents. She combined both her personal story, professional skills and network to found and lead Racial Justice NOW!, an organization that exists to transform communities through organizing, advocacy and systemic policy change.
Currently Co-founder and Co-Executive Director at Racial Justice NOW, Zakiya was named to the inaugural #Power50 Leadership Fellowship for women of color with Community Change, formerly The Center for Community Change. She has received many national recognitions and her work has been featured in the HBO series, Problem Areas and TruTV’s Adam Ruins Everything. When not organizing parents or advocating for students, you will find Zakiya on conference stages across North America equipping audiences with her strategic frameworks for change. Outside work Zakiya enjoys traveling and spending time with her husband and two children.
Project: School Discipline Report Cards for Alabama, Maryland & Ohio
Sankara-Jabar is reviving and expanding her ambitious disciplinary school report card project. Her organization, Racial Justice NOW! (RJN!), pioneered the report card methodology to assess and grade the disciplinary practices of over 1,000 school entities across Ohio. This data became foundational to RJN!’s advocacy and organizing work, including the passage of a 2018 law that strictly limited suspensions and expulsions for preschool to third-grade students in public and charter schools in Ohio, garnering national media attention. The practice of “grading” schools has since been adopted by many educational justice organizations and will expand to Alabama and Maryland during the Fellowship. Sankara-Jabar and her team continue to support their partners in using this effective tool to highlight racist disciplinary practices targeting Black youth, particularly Black boys, across the country.