Michael Corey

Image of Michael Corey
Visiting Faculty

Michael Corey is a data scientist working in responsible/ethical AI, privacy, blockchain, and visualization. A lapsed sociologist, he focuses on user-centered product development and applies social science to technological questions.

Biography

Corey is a technologist who seeks data and product solutions to make the internet better for users. He co-founded the Demography and Survey Science team at Facebook and also worked across ads, responsible AI, and diversity hiring teams there. He holds patents regarding using blockchain to ensure user privacy and automating advertising rating in advertising. While working in AI, he focused on model understandability, fairness, and automation, especially around measuring discrimination in complex ads delivery systems. He currently advises companies on Responsible AI as well as remaining active in the tech industry.

As a teacher, Corey focuses on interweaving the technical skills required to build computation with the vast theoretical, organizational, and historical literature around how technology does (and doesn’t) provide value to its creators and users. He favors the fundamental over the faddish, especially as a data scientist. His students will hopefully go on to build technology with the tools and perspective to build software for humans.

Corey has previously taught in the Product Studio at Cornell Tech and at DePaul University. Trained as a sociologist, he completed graduate work at Chicago, Oxford, and the London School of Economics. His sociological work focused on survey methods, time-diary data, and how shift-work shapes work-life balance. He also previously worked at NORC and The Harris School of Public Policy. He designed his own bachelor’s degree at Ithaca College. Corey was a visiting faculty member at Bennington for Fall 2022 and returns for the 2023-24 academic year.

Courses