Denise Toor is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Her research explores the cultural and societal impacts of new and emerging digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), with a particular focus on how marginalized groups are navigating our data-filled world. She is compelled to understand how AI technologies have transformed the ways individuals relate to the information environment. As processes of knowledge production are increasingly co-opted by AI models, her research seeks to answer important questions about the power institutions hold to control, manage, and regulate how we, as users, engage with information.

Prior to joining USC Annenberg, Toor worked as the Lab Manager for the Digital Democracies Institute (DDI), where she provided financial and project management, and coordinated international research collaborations, such as the Mellon-funded Data Fluencies Project. She was also Assistant Editor to the Terms of Media book series published by the Meson Press and Minnesota Press. Toor pursued her MA in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU), where her research was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), as well as through fellowships awarded by the DDI and merit-based graduate awards by the SFU Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology. Toor also obtained her BA in International Studies from SFU with a minor in Business Administration from the Beedie School of Business.