Zeynep Tufekci

Zeynep Tufekci (Turkish: Zeynep Tüfekçi; [zejˈnep tyˈfektʃi]; zay-NEP tuu-FEK-chee) is a Turkish-American sociologist, and the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She is also a columnist for The New York Times. Her work focuses on social media, media ethics, the social implications of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and big data, as well as societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic using complex and systems-based thinking. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, she is one of the most prominent academic voices on social media and the new public sphere. In 2022, Tufekci was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her "insightful, often prescient, columns on the pandemic and American culture", which the committee said "brought clarity to the shifting official guidance and compelled us towards greater compassion and informed response."

Before becoming a regular columnist, she was a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The Atlantic. She has also written columns for Wired and Scientific American. Prior to Princeton, she was a professor at Columbia University's Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and an associate professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina and associate professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.