Mary L. Gray

Gray at Microsoft Research in December 2015.

Mary L. Gray is an American anthropologist and author. She is a Fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, as well as a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research. Along with her research, Gray teaches at Indiana University, maintaining an appointment as an Associate Professor of the Media School, with affiliations in American Studies, Anthropology, and Gender Studies.

Education

In 1992, Gray completed a B.A. in anthropology and Native American studies at University of California, Davis. Her senior project explored the role of contemporary Alaskan Native single mothers in subsistence economies. Her advisors were David Risling and William G. Davis. In 1999, Gray earned a M.A. in anthropology from San Francisco State University. Her thesis was on queer youth narratives, the topic of her first book. Gray's advisors were John Paul De Cecco and Gilbert Herdt. She completed a Ph.D. in communication at University of California, San Diego in 2004. Gray's doctoral advisors were Susan Leigh Star and Olga Vásquez. Her dissertation was titled Coming of Age in a Digital Era: Youth Queering Technologies in Small Town, USA.

Career

Gray's research looks at how technology is incorporated in our everyday lives. She also looks at how technology is accessed across the globe. Her first book, In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Youth, is includes stories and experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual teens and the different hardships and successes they experienced growing up. The book also takes a look at the views of these teens stemming from their varying experiences. Her second book, Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America, explores the difficulties that the rural LGBTQ community faces living in areas where there aren't similar people to relate to. Gray looks at how these individuals take advantage of technology to broaden their knowledge and involvement in the LGBTQ community. Gray's most recent book, Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass, takes a deep dive into the depths of the "ghosts" or, human labor force, that allow some of the internet's largest websites to run smoothly. The book takes a look at big companies, like Google and Amazon, that use these "ghost workers" to do things like censor their sites while trying to pass it off like it's AI.

Awards

• Ruth Benedict Prize
• MacArthur Fellows Program 2020

Selected works

• Gray, Mary L. (1999). In Your Face: Stories from the Lives of Queer Youth. Haworth Press. ISBN 978-1-56023-887-4.
• Gray, Mary L. (2009). Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3220-5.
• Gray, Mary L.; Johnson, Colin R.; Gilley, Brian J., eds. (2016). Queering the Countryside: New Frontiers in Rural Queer Studies. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-3077-0.
• Gray, Mary L.; Suri, Siddharth (2019). Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-1-328-56628-7.

External links

• Official website