Hello, I’m Skyler!
I am an Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University. I received my PhD in Sociology from UC Berkeley and was previously a Sociologist at the Foundational AI Research (FAIR) lab at Meta.
Broadly, I interrogate sociotechnical and AI systems' inner workings and societal impact. 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 focus on improving online accessibility by developing socially and ethically grounded multimodal translation systems for speakers of underserved languages.
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, and NAACL, and media outlets such as TIME, Reuters, NPR, CNN, WIRED, The Verge, Vox, Quartz, and GQ.
What’s New?
Jun 2025: Christopher Dietzel, Stefanie Duguay, David Myles, and I were just awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant to study the growing integration of AI into dating apps.
Jun 2025: I organized two panels on “Reimagining More-Than-Human Intimacies: From Disenchantment to Technologies for Connection” at the 10th STS Conference in Milan.
May 2025: My dear friend Ryan Stotland wrote a song based on my research. You can listen to it on Spotify here.
Apr 2025: I gave a keynote on AI’s second-order impact at the Spring Global Summit on Open Problems for AI in Tokyo.
Mar 2025: My paper on data auxiliaries and dating spreadsheets is out in Information, Communication & Society (one of my favorite projects I’ve ever worked on).
Feb 2025: I gave a talk at Encode Canada on my research on ‘on-demand' intimacy’ and human-AI relationships.
Jan 2025: SeamlessM4T, one of TIME Magazine’s Top 200 Inventions of 2023, has been published in Nature.
Jan 2025: I gave an invited talk on ‘social-centered AI’ at the United Nations Development Programme.
Dec 2024: I co-chaired Ethics & Society Day at the AE Global Summit on Open Problems for AI in Boston.
Dec 2024: Check out our new work on developing a multi-agent dual dialogue system to support mental health care providers.
Nov 2024: Read our new paper on “The Multiple Dimensions of Spuriousness in Machine Learning.”
Nov 2024: I presented “How Platform Exchange and Safeguards Matter: The Case of Sexual Risk in Airbnb and Couchsurfing” at CSCW 2024 in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Oct 2024: “From human-centered to social-centered artificial intelligence: Assessing ChatGPT's impact through disruptive events” is now live in Big Data & Society.
Aug 2024: “Towards Privacy-Aware Sign Language Translation at Scale” is now available on ACL Anthology.
Jun 2024: No Language Left Behind (NLLB) has been published in Nature.