Community Data Clinic

Graduate Research Assistant

Melissa Wilfley

Melissa Wilfley is a PhD student in Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests center on big tech, globalization, ethical AI production and labor dynamics, with a comparative focus on the U.S. and Southeast Asia/China. Drawing on critical feminist and cultural frameworks, Melissa aims to investigate the ethical dimensions of AI development, specifically on how autonomous development teams navigate governance, further labor commodification, and social impact. Her work examines how these dynamics contribute to job precarity, racialized and gendered labor displacement, and broader questions of what constitutes ethical AI production and governance within a global, market-driven context.