T.R.A.P. LAB

Overview of our research

Our goal is to explore how identity, bias, and technology shape the foundations of the consumer marketplace and academic research. To support this work, we launched a weekly lab meeting bringing together research-active faculty, students, and industry leaders from around the world and across disciplines. We call this the Technology, Race, and Prejudice Lab (T.R.A.P. Lab). The lab's work aims to produce solutions that simultaneously enhance organizations' economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Each week, we meet online to discuss recently published research, share new findings, and provide feedback to support the progression of this work.

T.R.A.P. Lab Affiliates

Who we are...

Chairs

Broderick Turner, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Virginia Tech

Megan Trillo, Marketing Doctoral Candidate, Duke University

Recent Presenters
Andre Martin, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Notre Dame

Taiwo Togun, Data Scientist , Social Entrepreneur, and so much more

Kalinda Ukanwa, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of California - Irvine

David Rand, Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management, Cornell University

Simon Blanchard, Dean's Professor & Professor of Marketing, Georgetown University

Overall

An interdisciplinary cohort of graduate students, faculty members, and industry experts.

Our Work

Do you want to help?

You can help code computer vision training data...

We are conducting algorithm audit studies across multiple platforms. A key step is to classify the faces appearing in several important datasets used to train the algorithm. We need volunteers to help assess and classify pictures (e.g., whether the picture includes any recognizable faces and what is the likely racial and ethnic classification of those faces). You may categorize as many or as few images as you please. However, if you feel yourself losing interest, or making errors, please stop for the day. Accuracy is more important than quantity.

You can help here.

Building a pool of diverse participants

Academic research in business is very limited in the number of non-White participants it includes. Are you interested in getting paid to do short and interesting research studies?

If so, click here to become a participant.

Algorithm Auditors?

We live in a world that uses algorithms to do everything. Decide your credit score. Pick your partner. Choose your fate. We are looking for long term volunteers to upload data profiles to various websites and report the results. Please contact bltphd@vt.edu for more info.

How to measure and report race...

Hey academics,

Do you measure age and gender in your experiments and surveys? You report it, right?

Do you measure race? Report it? Why or Why not? Click here to learn our thinking about this.