Payton Croskey

Payton Croskey is a tech justice scholar and artist designing liberatory tools for a more just world. As a Ph.D. student in the Media Arts and Technology Program, her research occurs at the intersection of AI, archives and Afrofuturism as she develops theoretical frameworks and technical methodologies for ethically partnering with marginalized groups and modeling their data. She aims to enable Black and Brown communities to secure their place in the future historical record, ensuring that emergent technologies elevate and empower these groups by reflecting their histories. This is a continuation of her undergraduate research in Princeton University’s African American Studies and Computer Science departments. There, she researched efforts to resist surveillance systems and what she coined the Augmented Undercommons, a fugitive maker space where inhabitants redefine security, community and technological innovation apart from Western society and standards.

Ultimately, Payton’s work asks: What will bloom when we combine the beauty of the arts, critical thinking of the humanities, and specialized knowledge of the sciences to plant something freeing, beautiful and altogether new?

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