Desmond Upton Patton, PhD, MSW

Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) University Professor
Secondary Appointments: Department of Psychiatry – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia & Perelman School of Medicine
Founding Director, SAFElab
Founding Faculty Director, Penn Center for Inclusive Innovation & Technology
Chief Strategy Officer, School of Social Policy & Practice

Brief Bio

Desmond Upton Patton is the thirty-first Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor. He holds joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication, with secondary appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine and at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

Professor Patton’s groundbreaking research examines the relationship between social media and gun violence, grief, and loss, focusing on how online communities influence offline behavior. His work has made him the most cited and widely recognized scholar in this critical area of social science. Early research focused on detecting trauma and preventing violence on social media has evolved into broader investigations of language analysis and algorithmic bias in artificial intelligence. He currently serves as a member of Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council, the Ethics and Equity Advisory Council (EEAC) at Axon, TikTok’s U.S. Content Advisory Council, and is a trusted advisor to several AI startups.

Professor Patton’s groundbreaking research into the relationship between social media and gang violence – specifically how communities constructed online can influence often harmful behavior offline – has led to his becoming the most cited and recognized scholar in this increasingly important area of social science. His early work attempting to detect trauma and preempt violence on social media led to his current roles as an expert on language analysis and bias in AI and a member of Twitter’s Academic Research advisory board and Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council. As a social worker, Patton realized existing gold standard data science techniques could not accurately understand key cultural nuances in language amongst predominantly black and Hispanic youth. In response, he created the Contextual Analysis of Social Media (CASM) approach to center and privilege culture, context and inclusion in machine learning and computer vision analysis. CASM can be applied by businesses and other organizations to observe social media and workplace communication channels for potentially incendiary language, which taken out of context can lead to violence. With this methodology, organizations can better foster diverse and inclusive environments and minimize employee conflict. Further, Patton’s insights on creating non-biased and culturally nuanced algorithms give tech companies a holistic perspective on various business and social issues. The companies that adopt these proactive measures are then able to ensure they are not unintentionally propagating bias.