Briana Vecchione
GUEST SPEAKER
Briana Vecchione is a researcher at Data & Society Research Institute. She explores what happens when people turn to AI for socioemotional use—particularly with respect to mental health, therapeutic support, and the spectrum of AI companionship.
Her work centers on algorithmic auditing and institutional accountability, which includes foundational work on dataset transparency, the history and social justice dimensions of audit methodologies, and empirical studies of audit tooling gaps and regulatory compliance.
Vecchione holds a doctorate in information science from Cornell University, and her work has received support from the NSF, MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.
