S. Craig Watkins

Prof. University of Texas at Austin

Craig Watkins is the Ernest A. Sharpe Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and also the founding director of the Institute for Media Innovation a new boutique hub for research and design located in UT's Moody College of Communication. IMI brings together a unique collection of social scientists, media creatives, journalists, and designers to translate research-driven knowledge into critical and creative engagement with a media, tech, and AI-driven world that grows more influential everyday. Craig has written six books including, most recently, The Digital Edge and Don't Knock the Hustle. The Digital Edge explores the changing contours of Black and Latino teens tech media behaviors. Don't Knock the Hustle considers how "young creatives" are using tech and social ingenuity to build a new innovation economy.

Craig Watkins is also the MLK Visiting Professor at MIT in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society where he is working on initiatives related to the design of artificial intelligence/machine learning to address structural racism.