Jordan
Brensinger,
Sociologist.
I am a sociologist of technology and the economy. I study how organizations harness data about people — from banking records to brain activity — and what those systems mean for everyday life, opportunity, and inequality. My work appears in the American Sociological Review and Sociological Theory.
Misidentified: Searching for Security in the Data Economy
How do organizations make individuals legible — and what happens when they get it wrong? Using 100+ interviews with victims and professionals, hundreds of hours of observation, and document analysis, this NSF-funded project examines financial identity theft to understand how “accurate” personal data and unique identities emerge from fraught negotiations between technology, expert judgment, and consumer experience.
Learn more →The Neurotech Futures Study
What happens when the brain becomes a data source?Neurotechnologies that interface directly with the brain are often initially pitched as addressing serious medical needs like managing tremors in Parkinson’s patients or restoring mobility for quadriplegics. But developers increasingly envision much broader applications: using brain signals to track, interpret, and even influence thoughts or feelings in the general population. This study examines how that expansion is unfolding. Combining social science and philosophy, it explores the conditions under which neurotechnologies come to be seen as transformative, the visions of the future that animate developers and other stakeholders, and how those visions get encoded in the ongoing development and use of the technologies.
The Interdependence of Attitudes Toward Social Groups
How does partisan identity shape the way Americans feel about social groups — and how do race and political affiliation interact to produce distinct attitude logics? Drawing on national survey data and computational methods, this project maps the networked structure of Americans’ social attitudes across 17 groups — the broadest set of measures studied to date.
Learn more →Peer-Reviewed Articles
Reviews & Book Chapters
His Identity Was Stolen Once. Then, It Happened Again. Why Didn’t His Bank Believe Him?
Press coverage of research on identity theft, inequality, and institutional blame.
Partisanship Is Not the Only ‘Logic’ Informing Americans’ Attitudes Toward Social Groups
With Ramina Sotoudeh. Public-facing summary of research on partisan identity and social group affect.
Who Should Be Responsible for Personal Data?
With Taylor Leaphart, Jorge Rosero, and others. On accountability in the personal data economy.
My primary goal is to guide students in collaboratively acquiring analytic and methodological tools for unsettling conventional views about the world. I design courses to foster critical thinking, practical research skills, and habits of mind that extend beyond the classroom.