Uttara M. Ananthakrishnan

I am an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University. At a broad level, my research objective is to analyze consumer online and to understand how these interactions influence the design and operation of online platforms. My research sits at the intersection of Technology, Business, and Policy. I received my Ph.D. in Information Systems and Management from Carnegie Mellon University. I worked at the Foster School of Business, University of Washington, from 2018 to 2023. I taught Digital Transformation of Organizations to the students in the Masters in Information Systems Program. I also taught Product Management at the graduate and the undergraduate level. 

Prior to starting in academia, I worked at Google for three years where I analyzed the sharing patterns of users and developed signals to automate spam and abuse detection on social products of Google. During my time at Google, I worked with engineering, policy, and legal teams to design policies that aimed to identify, report, and mitigate abuse on social media, including harassment of minors.

Over the course of my time working at Google, I have seen first-hand how changes in online interactions drive technology companies to reinvent aspects of traditional e-commerce models. I have also experienced how managers grapple with the realities of business economics such as increasing revenue and profits while designing user-facing policies that will not only keep their consumers engaged but also sustain the consumer’s trust on the platform.  

My research explores the complex societal impacts of technology, focusing on the balance between its benefits and the critical challenges related to trust and safety. A key aspect of my work is the analysis of user-generated content, particularly online reviews and videos, examining how businesses leverage it and how platforms must address its potential issues. My research has contributed to policy discussions on content moderation, online harassment, and harmful online behaviors. My studies cover areas such as fraudulent reviews, hate speech, misinformation, deplatforming, and brand safety. 

My research extends beyond online interactions to analyze the profound offline societal consequences of technology. One area of focus is the role of digital platforms in amplifying political consumerism. I have demonstrated how the inclusion of business owner ethnicity in online reviews can generate substantial advantages for minority-owned enterprises. I also explore how social media enables increased consumption of banned books, and how the Dobbs ruling has created a chilling effect on healthcare app usage. My recent work examines the impact of TikTok on user wellness and sleep.

My research employs large-scale data analysis, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing techniques to address critical public policy questions. For instance, I utilize over 38 million 911 call records to investigate racial mistrust. Additionally, I leverage extensive review datasets to examine the effects of occupational licensing. Furthermore, I am developing frameworks to analyze algorithmic black boxes.

My research has been published in leading management and marketing journals and top-tier peer-reviewed conferences. It has also been featured in professional publications like The Harvard Business Review and The Sloan Management Review, as well as news outlets such as the NPR, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. My research has also been cited in high-profile Supreme Court cases. 

I've been recognized for my teaching and research with several awards. These include teaching excellence awards for 2020, 2022, and 2023 in the Master of Science in Information Systems program at the University of Washington. I've also received Best Paper Runner-Up awards at the Conference on Information Systems and Technology and Workshop on Information Systems and Economics. My paper won the exemplary empirics track paper award at the 21st ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC'21). I've served on review panels for top management journals and currently hold the position of Associate Editor for the International Conference on Information Systems. Additionally, I've participated on core program committees for leading peer-reviewed conferences in the Information Systems field.

I received my Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Anna University, India in 2010, where I was awarded the Best Outgoing Student prize. I received the Rajiv Gandhi Summer Research Fellowship from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research during the summer of 2008 and interned at the Indian Institute of Science. I also received a merit scholarship for professional studies from the Central Board of Secondary Education during all four years of my undergraduate education. I was ranked first among 88,908 candidates in the state who appeared for the 10th Standard Matriculation exam in 2004.