Elena Maris is a Data & Society affiliate, and an assistant professor in the department of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research is concerned with media, technology, and society. She is particularly interested in the ways media/tech industries and their audiences or users try to understand and influence one another. Elena also studies how people experience and leverage their identities through popular culture and the internet. She has expertise in user/industry relations, privacy, the politics of platforms and AI, audience measurement and social media metrics, digital fandom and online communities, and marginalized users. 

Previously, Elena was a postdoctoral researcher with the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research. Her work has been published in journals including New Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, and Feminist Media Studies. Her research has been featured in outlets including The New York Times, Wired, Marketplace, and Forbes. She has advised and shared her insights with organizations and companies including The Sundance Institute, The National Endowment for the Arts, Tumblr, and Xbox. Elena holds a PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.