Associate Professor and Vice Chair
Department of Computer Science
Director of Center for Data, Ethics, and Society
Dr. Michael Zimmer is the Director of Marquette's Center for Data, Ethics, and Society, an interdisciplinary center focused on confronting contemporary data ethics issues such as the controversies and consequences of our increasingly data-driven lives and spaces, unfair algorithmic biases, the unequal effects of computational decision-making, the privacy threats of ubiquitous surveillance systems, and the role for corporate social responsibility and accountability.
Background
Dr. Michael Zimmer is a privacy and data ethics scholar whose work focuses on digital privacy & surveillance, the ethics of big data, internet research ethics, and the broader social & ethical dimensions of emerging digital technologies.
Dr. Zimmer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Marquette University, and Director of the Center for Data, Ethics, and Society. He is an Affiliated Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, as well as the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute.
Courses Taught
- CORE 1929: Methods of Inquiry: Data Science
- COSC 1820: Computers, Ethics, and Society
- COSC 4820/5820: Social and Ethical Implications of Data
- COSC 6820: Data Ethics
- COSC 6960: Seminar in Computer Science: Critical Algorithm Studies
Research Interests
- Privacy
- Data ethics
- Internet research ethics
- Social & ethical computing
Professional Affiliations
- Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) – Member of Ethics Working Committee
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) – Member of Ethics Committee
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT)
Publications
- Vitak, J., Liao, Y., Mols, A., Trottier, D., Zimmer, M., Kumar, P., & Pridmore, J. (2023). When Do Data Collection and Use Become a Matter of Concern? A Cross-Cultural Comparison of U.S. and Dutch Privacy Attitudes. International Journal of Communication, 17, 471-498.
- Pater, J., Fiesler, C., & Zimmer, M. (2022). No Humans Here: Ethical Speculation on Public Data, Unintended Consequences, and the Limits of Institutional Review. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 6(GROUP), 1-13.
- Zimmer, M. and Logan, S. (2021), Privacy concerns with using public data for suicide risk prediction algorithms: a public opinion survey of contextual appropriateness, Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society.
- Shilton, K., Moss, E., Gilbert, S. A., Bietz, M. J., Fiesler, C., Metcalf, J., Vitak, J., & Zimmer, M. (2021). Excavating awareness and power in data science: A manifesto for trustworthy pervasive data research. Big Data & Society
- Proferes, N., Jones, N., Gilbert, S., Fiesler, C., & Zimmer, M. (2021). Studying Reddit: A Systematic Overview of Disciplines, Approaches, Methods, and Ethics. Social Media + Society.
- Reuter, K., Deodhar, A., Makri, S., Zimmer, M., Berenbaum, F., Nikiphorou, xE. (2021). COVID-19 pandemic impact on people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases: Insights from patient-generated health data on social media. Rheumatology.
- Hargittai, E., Redmiles, E. M., Vitak, J., & Zimmer, M. (2020). Americans’ willingness to adopt a COVID-19 tracking app. First Monday, 25(11). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i11.11095
- Vitak, J., & Zimmer, M. (2020). More Than Just Privacy: Using Contextual Integrity to Evaluate the Long-Term Risks from COVID-19 Surveillance Technologies. Social Media + Society.
- Wu, P., Vitak, J., & Zimmer, M. (2020). A Contextual Approach to Information Privacy Research. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 71(4). 485-490.
- Zimmer, M., Kumar, P., Vitak, J., Liao, Y., & Chamberlain Kritikos, K. (2020). ‘There’s Nothing Really They Can Do with This Information’: Unpacking How Users Manage Privacy Boundaries for Personal Fitness Information. Information, Communication & Society, 23(7), 1020-1037.
- Reuter ,K., Zhu, Y., Angyan, P., Le, N., Merchant, A., Zimmer, M. (2019). Public Concern About Monitoring Twitter Users and Their Conversations to Recruit for Clinical Trials: Survey Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(10).
- Chu, K. H., Colditz, J., Sidani, J., Zimmer, M., & Primack, B. (2019). Re-evaluating standards of human subjects protection for sensitive health data in social media networks. Social Networks.
- Liao, Y., Vitak, J., Kumar, P., Zimmer, M., & Kritikos, K. (2019). Understanding the Role of Privacy and Trust in Intelligent Personal Assistant Adoption. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual iConference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (iConference) (pp. 102-113).
- Zimmer, M. (2018). Addressing Conceptual Gaps in Big Data Research Ethics: An Application of Contextual Integrity. Social Media + Society, 4(2).
- Zimmer, M. & Kinder-Kurlanda, K. (Eds.). (2017). Internet Research Ethics for the Social Age: New Challenges, Cases, and Contexts. New York: Peter Lang
Grants
- “Public Opinion Research on Artificial Intelligence in Public Health Responses” American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Co-Principal Investigator: $18,689. 2020-2021
- “How COVID-19 is Changing Workplace Surveillance: American Workers’ Experiences & Privacy Expectations When Working from Home” Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Rapid-Response Grants on Covid-19 and the Social Sciences. Co-Principal Investigator: $5,000. 2020-2021
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"PERVADE: Pervasive Data Ethics for Computational Research". National Science Foundation (NSF) CHS: LARGE: Collaborative Research grant. Co-Principal Investigator: $373,957 ($3 million total project funding). 2017-2021
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“Mapping Privacy and Surveillance Dynamics in Emerging Mobile Ecosystems: Practices and Contexts in the Netherlands and US.” National Science Foundation (NSF) EAGER (EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research) grant. Co-Principal Investigator: $100,685 ($262,000 total project funding). 2016-2019
Dr. Michael ZimmerMarquette University
