Hi there!

My name is Isha and I am a recent Postdoctoral Fellow from the Digital Civil Society Lab and the Department of Communication at Stanford University. I am interested in studying the emerging impacts of AI technologies and infrastructures on our economic, social, and environmental futures.

Updates:

Affiliation: I am currently developing a new project that will examine upcoming AI infrastructures along India’s coastline between 2026-30 - if your organization or department is interested in hosting me as an affiliate researcher, please get in touch (b.isha.ravi at gmail.com).

Job Search: I am currently actively searching for research positions. Please get in touch if you have openings!

Consulting: I am available for consulting with civil society, government, and industry groups at the intersection of gender, technology, and work. This can take several forms, such as conducting landscape reviews of key topics, developing resources and workshops, and guiding messaging strategies.

Writing and speaking: I am looking for opportunities to share my research work and field insights through public-facing writing and speaking - please get in touch if you’d like me to write for your magazine, blog, paper, or join a podcast.

I am an expert researcher with experience spanning academia, policy, advocacy, organizing, and industry. I use a range of (qualitative, quantitave, and participatory) methodologies to investigate fundamental research questions, analyze policy developments, offer community-centered support, and conduct user research for products and services. I take a people-centered approach in my work, and my strong interdisciplinary background lets me apply ideas and insights from a variety of fields to solve problems.

I hold a PhD in Sociology and an MA in Demographic Analysis from UC Irvine, as well as an Integrated MA in Development Studies from IIT Madras. My dissertation project examined the gender dynamics of platform work through an ethnography of gig workers and platform managers in the care work sector in Mumbai. I identified new forms of gendered algorithmic management, traced how algorithmized recruitment systems gamify women’s access to work, and showed what happens to work when platforms bring socially reproductive labour into the market. Since 2022, I have also been supporting women’s gig unions and collectives as a volunteer.

Previously, I have worked at Google as a UX Research Intern with the Fitbit team, and for UNICEF and UN Women on tech and development policy consultancy projects. My past projects have focused on adolescent reproductive healthcare, adolescents' mobile phone subcultures, multi-dimensional approaches to poverty, and family-level cognitive burdens of incarceration. I have worked on these and other projects with a variety of collaborators and teams, spanning academics, tech workers, policymakers, poverty practitioners, public health workers, union organizers, community leaders, and social workers, across South Asia, UK, USA, and Sub-Saharan Africa. You can check out some of my projects here.

At the moment, I’m completing multiple writing projects, in which I’m developing participatory frameworks for algorithmic accountability, writing about the histories of women’s work in India, and analyzing new forms of human-algorithmic management in platforms. I’m also one of the facilitators of the Labor Tech Research Network - India Collective.

Download my CV.

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