Gina Neff is a prominent scholar in the field of Communications, renowned for her research on the social and organizational impacts of emerging communication technologies. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and a B.A. in Economics and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. Neff's academic interests center on digital transformation, the future of work, responsible AI, and how technologies mediate human communication and labor. She developed the concept of "venture labor," describing the risk-bearing entrepreneurial orientation of workers in tech-driven industries, detailed in her seminal book Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries (MIT Press, 2012), which earned the 2013 Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) Book Award.

Neff's distinguished career includes positions as Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington and Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, where she led doctoral programs and received the 2019 Social Sciences Division Teaching Excellence Award. She currently serves as Professor of Responsible AI at Queen Mary University of London, Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge, Deputy Chief Executive Officer for UKRI Responsible AI UK, and Associate Director of the ESRC Digital Good Network. Key publications also encompass Self-Tracking (MIT Press, 2016, co-edited with Dawn Nafus), Human-Centered Data Science (MIT Press, 2022), and influential articles including "Imagined Affordance: Reconstructing a Keyword for Communication Theory" (2015, over 1,100 citations), "Entrepreneurial Labor Among Cultural Producers: 'Cool' Jobs in 'Hot' Industries" (2005, over 800 citations), and "Talking to Bots: Symbiotic Agency and the Case of Tay" (2016). Neff led the team awarded the 2021 Webby Award for Best Educational Website for the A to Z of AI project, reaching over one million users globally. She holds leadership roles on boards such as the Social Science Research Council, Institute for the Future of Work, and Reset.tech, and advises international bodies including UNESCO and the OECD, underscoring her profound influence in the field.

Professional Email: g.neff@qmul.ac.uk