Julia Ticona, Ph.D.

Julia Ticona is an assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, where her research investigates the ways that digital communication technologies shape the meaning and dignity of precarious work. She uses qualitative methods to examine the role of mobile phones, algorithmic labor platforms, and data-intensive management systems in the construction of identity and inequality for low-wage workers. She also collaborated on an amicus brief on behalf of Data & Society for Carpenter vs. U.S. before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her book, about the “digital hustles” of high and low-status freelancers in the gig economy, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Previously, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the Data & Society Research Institute and is now a Faculty Affiliate. She is also an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Virginia, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows, and her B.A. from Wellesley College. You can find her work in New Media & Society, Information, Communication, and Society, as well as Wired, FastCompany, and Slate.