The Department of Sociology invites the 91ÑÇÉ« community to attend its 2026 Annual Lecture on Thursday, September 24 from 4-6 p.m. The lecture, titled Pre-Determined Purchasing Power: Governing Algorithmic Price and Wage Discrimination, will be delivered by Professor Veena Dubal of Irvine School of Law, University of California. Dubal will discuss how data-driven systems increasingly determine wages and prices and how workers and consumers are governed by the same underlying data infrastructures—narrowing opportunities for negotiation and embedding inequality into everyday exchanges.
Professor Dubal holds a B.A. from Stanford University and J.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. A professor of Law at UC Irvine, with a courtesy appointment in Anthropology, her widely cited scholarship has influenced courts and policymakers internationally. A former public interest attorney, she currently serves as General Counsel of the American Association of University Professors.