Yale Law School (LL.M) and Columbia University (Ph.D.)
Occupation(s)
writer, law professor, A.I. ethicists, board member, speaker
Ajunwa (2014)
Ifeoma Yvonne Ajunwa (born 26 October 1980)[2] is a Nigerian-American writer, AI Ethics legal scholar, sociologist, and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory Law School where she is also Associate Dean and Founding Director of the A.I. and Future of Work Program.[3] She was a Resident Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project (ISP)[4] and she has been a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School since 2017.[5] From 2021–2022, she was a Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria where she studied the role of law for tech start-ups.[6] She was previously an assistant professor of labor and employment law at Cornell University from 2017–2020, earning tenure there in 2020.[7][8] She is an Elected Member of the American Law Institute and an Elected Life Fellow for the American Bar Foundation. She is the author of The Quantified Worker, published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.
Ajunwa is a graduate of Yale Law School (LLM) and Columbia University (M.Phil and Ph.D.) She also completed a Fellowship at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center[9] from 2016–2017. Ajunwa was a McNair Scholar as an undergraduate student, received an AAUW Selected Professions Fellowship in law school, and was a Paul F. Lazersfeld Fellow as a PhD student.[10] Ajunwa's PhD thesis was advised by Josh Whitford.[11][12]
Career
Ajunwa is a writer, legal scholar, AI ethics researcher, and tenured professor of law. She has held several brief positions at different law schools and is currently serving as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory Law School.[3] Prior to that, Ajunwa was an assistant professor at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations[7] and an associate faculty member at Cornell Law School.[13] She is a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University,[14] where previously she served as a Fellow from 2016–2017 and as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School,.[13][15] Ajunwa was awarded tenure by Cornell University on May 22, 2020.[16] After leaving Cornell, she briefly taught Contracts at the University of North Carolina School of Law. In her first semester at UNC, she accepted a position at Emory University School of Law, which she began in 2023.
Ajunwa's research interests are at the intersection of law and technology with a particular focus on the ethical governance of workplace technologies, race and tech, AI and Discrimination (especially in the region of Africa), corporate governance, DEI, health equity and privacy. Her research focus is also on diversity and inclusion in the labor market and the workplace.[13] Her first book – The Quantified Worker – was published by Cambridge University Press in May 2023.[17][18]
Ajunwa is an active keynote speaker, board member, advisor, and expert on AI and Ethics issues. She has testified before Congress and several governmental agencies. On January 20, 2023, she testified before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Meeting of January 31, 2023 – Navigating Employment Discrimination in AI and Automated Systems. On February 5, 2020, Ajunwa testified at a U.S. House of RepresentativesCommittee on Education and Labor hearing on "The Future of Work: Protecting Workers' Civil Rights in the Digital Age". She discussed artificial intelligence-enabled racial bias in hiring practices and advocated for legislation protecting personal and genetic data privacy in the workplace.[19][20] On May 6, 2018, Ajunwa was a TEDx Speaker at Cornell University[21] where she presented a talk on the Controversies of Ethics and Technology in the Modern Workplace.[22] At Cornell, Ajunwa has served as a board member on several advisory boards, including for the Institute for Africa Development[23] and the Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP).[24] She is a founding board member of the Labor Tech Research Network and has served as advisory board member or consultant for several Fortune 500 tech companies.
Awards and honors
2025 - Notable African Woman in Tech - AWIT
2023 - Elected Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation
2023 - Elected Member of the American Law Institute
2023-2024- Resident Fellow, Yale Law's Information Society Project
2022 – 2023: Visiting Fellow, Yale Law School's Information Society Project[25]
“Race, Labor, and the Future of Work,” Oxford Handbook of Race and Law in the United States, Eds. Devon Carbado, Emily Houh, and Khiara Bridges (invited Contribution) (forthcoming 2020)
“The Black Box at Work” Special Issue of Big Data and Society, Eds. Frank Pasquale and Benedetta Brevini (invited Contribution) (forthcoming 2020)
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