Hello, I’m Skyler!

I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University and a Research Scientist at the Foundational AI Research (FAIR) lab at Meta. I received my PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley.

Broadly, I am an AI sociologist who interrogates the inner workings and societal impact of sociotechnical and machine learning systems. Using mixed-methods, experiments, and STS approaches, my research critically examines the epistemic cultures of machine learning and human-machine interactions in health and relational contexts. One branch of my empirical work explores how digital platforms—such as network hospitality, online dating, and AI companions—shape modern intimacy and relationships.

In applied AI, I work with both industry and academic collaborators to develop state-of-the-art, open-source machine translation models for speakers of underserved languages. Our foundational work on No Language Left Behind and SeamlessM4T has been published in Nature, and the latter was named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 200 Inventions.

When it comes to AI development, I advocate for a shift from an exclusive focus on human-centeredness toward what I call a ‘social-centered’ approach. Beyond academic institutions, I have given talks on this idea in global conferences and events, including the United Nations. You can read more about this line of thinking here.

My research has been featured in journals such as Nature, Big Data & Society, Information, Communication & Society, PLOS One, Sex Roles, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and Sociological Perspectives, HCI & machine learning venues such as CSCW, ACL, EMNLP, and NAACL, and media outlets such as TIME, Reuters, NPR, CNN, WIRED, The Verge, Vox, Quartz, and GQ.