Affiliations
Assistant Professor of Data Science, School of Data Science
Bio
Jess Reia is an Assistant Professor of Data Science and a Faculty co-lead at the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia. In 2025, Reia was selected as an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. They are also a Visiting Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C. Reia works primarily on topics of technology policy and human rights transnationally, being interested in the untold stories in our datasets, citizen-generated data and how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we think about evidence and representation.
A policymaker by training, Reia’s research and advocacy agenda has focused on building collaborations with government and civil society organizations in Brazil, Canada and the US for over a decade, resulting in numerous resources to support policy- and decision-making and academic publications in four languages. Reia is also a public scholar whose writing and interviews were featured in various outlets, including Estadão, Le Devoir and BBC. Before joining UVA, they were appointed Mellon Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University, studying the impact of smart-washing and datafication in nocturnal urban spaces and their communities. Reia held a two-year mandate as a member of MTL 24/24’s first Night Council in Montreal. Prior to that, they worked at the Center for Technology & Society at FGV Law School in Rio de Janeiro.
Reia’s latest book, “Urban Music Governance: What Busking Can Teach Us about Data, Policy and Our Cities” (Intellect/University of Chicago Press, 2025), explores what happens when precarious urban cultural laborers take data collection, laws, and policymaking into their own hands. A transnational exploration of often unseen aspects of urban governance, it examines the intricate limits of legality, data visibility, and resistance from the perspective of those working at the social and regulatory margins of society.
Currently, Reia teaches courses for future data scientists on ethics, governance, and policy. Past courses have included a focus on urban data, digital rights, intellectual property, and research methods.
