Solon Barocas

Candidates should apply for the posting that best matches their career stage:

Senior researcher: apply.careers.microsoft.com/careers/job/...

Principal researcher: apply.careers.microsoft.com/careers/job/...

We're particularly interested in candidates who do interdisciplinary research on sociotechnical approaches to AI evaluation and measurement; AI and critical thought; and the challenges of responsible AI in industry.

Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a researcher in the space of AI and society!

Apply for our sociotechnical systems postdoc position, for July 2026 Microsoft Research New England is looking for a postdoctoral researcher interested in bringing sociotechnical perspectives to analyze critical issues of our time. They will join a team of social sc…

Our postdoc search is open! socialmediacollective.org/2025/11/20/s...

Spread the word! 📢 The FATE (Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics) group at @msftresearch.bsky.social in NYC is hiring interns and postdocs to start in summer 2026! 🎉

Apply by *December 15* for full consideration.

Looking for news on @msftresearch.bsky.social FATE internships & postdocs? YES, we will have positions, but bear with us — we expect postings to go up in mid-November and I will post an update here as soon as they do.

Upturn Seeks an Executive Director Upturn advances equity and justice in the design, governance, and use of technology.

The search for Upturn’s next Executive Director starts today!

We're seeking candidates with 10+ years of experience and a commitment to advancing equity & justice, who can guide Upturn’s long-term political vision and continue to grow the institution. Apply by Nov 24: www.upturn.org/join/executi...

Screenshot of paper abstract, with text: "A core ethos of the Economics and Computation (EconCS) community is that people have complex private preferences and information of which the central planner is unaware, but which an appropriately designed mechanism can uncover to improve collective decisionmaking. This ethos underlies the community’s largest deployed success stories, from stable matching systems to participatory budgeting. I ask: is this choice and information aggregation “worth it”? In particular, I discuss how such systems induce heterogeneous participation: those already relatively advantaged are, empirically, more able to pay time costs and navigate administrative burdens imposed by the mechanisms. I draw on three case studies, including my own work – complex democratic mechanisms, resident crowdsourcing, and school matching. I end with lessons for practice and research, challenging the community to help reduce participation heterogeneity and design and deploy mechanisms that meet a “best of both worlds” north star: use preferences and information from those who choose to participate, but provide a “sufficient” quality of service to those who do not."

New piece, out in the Sigecom Exchanges! It's my first solo-author piece, and the closest thing I've written to being my "manifesto." #econsky #ecsky
arxiv.org/abs/2507.03600

1) Thrilled to be at #FAccT for the first time this week, representing a meta-research paper on positionality statements at FAccT from 2018-2024, in collaboration with @s010n.bsky.social and Akshansh Pareek, "Disclosure without Engagement: An Empirical Review of Positionality Statements at FAccT"

Exciting news: The Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics (FATE) group at Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a predoctoral fellow!!! 🎉

www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...

Building A Disability-Inclusive AI Ecosystem: A Cross-Disability, Cross-Systems Analysis Of Best Practices This report is co-authored by AAPD’s Henry Claypool. In 2021, the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) released a report entitled “Centering Disability in Technology Policy: Issue Landscape and Potential Opportunities for Action.” This represented a significant milestone in a partnership between AAPD and CDT to […]

AI has the power to advance equity — but only if it's designed with everyone in mind. A recent report from CDT & @aapd-disability.bsky.social outlines how to build a disability-inclusive #AI ecosystem across employment, healthcare, education, and more.
Read it here: cdt.org/insights/bui...

🚨 New: CRA Trustworthy AI Research Fellowship for Early Career Scholars! $16.5K stipend, travel, field school, & pro dev for post-PhD computing researchers (US-based) with interdisciplinary focus. Apply by 4/30!

🔗 cra.jotform.com/250765548764...

#AIResearchSupport #FellowshipOpportunity #CRA

Upturn Seeks a Research Associate This position is ideal for someone who is excited about sharp, interdisciplinary research on a range of topics related to technology, policy, and justice.

👋 @upturn.org is hiring a Research Associate — ideal for someone who is excited about sharp, interdisciplinary research on a range of topics related to technology and justice.

application deadline: 1/31/25

www.upturn.org/join/researc...

Methodology as a Knife Fight: The Process, Politics and Paradox of Evaluating Surveillance - Critical Criminology This paper uses the analogy of an unregulated fight to examine the rhetorical politics of evaluation research pertaining to surveillance measures. It outlines how, in addition to being standard fare i...

Exactly what I took from this paper many years ago, too: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The FATE group at @msftresearch.bsky.social NYC is accepting applications for 2025 interns. 🥳🎉

For full consideration, apply by 12/18.

jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...

Interested in AI evaluation? Apply for the STAC internship too!

jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...

Screened Out: The Impact of Digitized Hiring Assessments on Disabled Workers This report is also authored by Henry Claypool and Wilneida Negrón. [ PDF version ] Companies have incorporated hiring technologies, including AI-powered assessments and other automated employment decision systems (AEDSs), into various stages of the hiring process across a wide range of industries. While proponents argue that these technologies can aid in identifying suitable candidates […]

AI-powered hiring technologies are transforming recruitment, but are they inclusive? CDT’s latest report dives into the ethical and legal risks of digitized assessments, particularly their impact on disabled job applicants. cdt.org/insights/scr...

howdy!

the Georgetown Law Journal has published "Less Discriminatory Algorithms." it's been very fun to work on this w/ Emily Black, Pauline Kim, Solon Barocas, and Ming Hsu.

i hope you give it a read — the article is just the beginning of this line of work.

www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-l...