Researcher, Labor Futures

Alexandra Mateescu

Alexandra Mateescu examines issues of worker (in)visibility, domestic labor and carework, and workplace surveillance.

Alexandra Mateescu is a researcher in the Social Instabilities in Labor Futures initiative. Her most recent publication, co-authored with Madeleine Claire Elish, is AI In Context: The Labor of Integrating New Technologies, a public-facing report that draws on interviews and fieldwork in two work contexts—farm management and grocery retail—to surface the everyday effects of AI and automated technologies.

Her previous research has examined the experiences of domestic workers using online labor platforms to find work, and the ways that visibility, algorithmic management, and digital surveillance are shaping historically entrenched inequalities in the industry. Her academic publications include journal articles in Surveillance & Society and New Media & Society, and her writing has been published or cited in The New York Times, NPR, The Nation, Fast Company, and Slate. Her scholarly background is in the field of Anthropology, and she holds an MA and BA from the University of Chicago.