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 investigate whether socio-technical and AI systems designed to improve our day-to-day lives meet their moral and social commitments. My empirical work examines how digital platforms (i.e., network hospitality, online dating, and AI companions) shape modern intimacies and relationships. My applied AI research focuses on alleviating accessibility issues online by developing socially and ethically grounded multimodal translation systems for those who communicate with underserved languages.
My research has been featured in journals such as Nature, Big Data & Society, PLOS One, Sex Roles, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and Sociological Perspectives, HCI & machine learning proceedings such as CSCW and ACL, and media outlets such as Time, Reuters, NPR, CNN, WIRED, The Verge, Vox, Quartz, and GQ.
What’s New?
Nov 2024: Read our new paper exploring the “The Multiple Dimensions of Spuriousness in Machine Learning.”
Nov 2024: I will be presenting “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 on 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.
Jun 2024: New Elle Magazine interview exploring the intersections of self-representation on social media and dating.
Apr 2024: Check out our new Archives of Sexual Behavior article that uses a “safety spectrum" theory to explain how LGBTQ+ young adults navigate personal risk in app-based hookups.
Nov 2023: We launched a family of models for expressive and simultaneous speech-to-speech translation.
Oct 2023: SeamlessM4T was named one of the top inventions of 2023 by TIME Magazine.