Paola Ricaurte is a full professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Grounded in a commitment to global justice, her work bridges scholarly research, activism, policymaking, and innovation.
She critically examines hegemonic sociotechnical systems, advocates for their regulation and democratic governance, and contributes to the development of feminist, decolonial, community-centered AI technologies that respect human rights, the environment, and the commons. In 2025, she was included in the TIME100 AI list as one of the most influential thinkers in the field of artificial intelligence. Scholarship Paola's academic work challenges traditional notions of knowledge production, advancing the decolonization of knowledge through open networks and institutional transformation. She foregrounds pluriversality, elevates women's knowledge, and amplifies non-Western epistemologies and voices. Her research examines AI as an assemblage of power. She coined the concept of necrotechnopolitics to analyze how AI systems function as mechanisms that reproduce violence at scale, sustaining existing structures of capitalist, colonialist, and patriarchal power. At the Berkman Klein Center, she explores the intersections of technology, intersectionality, coloniality, and power. Together with Mayo Fuster and Catherine D'Ignazio, she co-coordinates the FemTech Futures Working Group, fostering dialogue on how geopolitical and micropolitical forces shape the institutional, regulatory, infrastructural, material, symbolic, and affective dimensions of technology, and emphasizing networks of care for those who create and shape it.
She also participates in the Race+Tech+Media Working Group, led by Jenny Korn and Roslyn Satchel, which examines the intersections of race research, art, practice, and daily life. Activism In 2020, Paola co-founded Tierra Común with Nick Couldry and Ulises Mejías, a network of academics, practitioners, and activists dedicated to decolonizing data. The collective volume Resisting Data Colonialism highlights contributions from its members and allies in theorizing and resisting data colonialism. From 2020 to 2021, with BKC fellows Sabelo Mhlambi and Jessica Fjeld, she co-chaired the Decolonial AI Manyfesto, defined as "a provocation, a question, an opening, a dance about a future of AI technologies that is decolonial." In 2023, alongside a group of human rights activists in Latin America, she launched the Feminist Decolonial Coalition for Digital and Environmental Justice, fostering dialogue and shared agendas between land defenders and digital rights advocates. Through the project Tramas, the coalition examined case studies across Latin America to reveal the multidimensional impacts of AI throughout its lifecycle.
In 2024, in collaboration with Sursiendo, a feminist digital rights organization in Mexico, she co-developed Tecnoafecciones, a project highlighting the relational nature of technology. The initiative offers workshops and develops educational resources and public awareness campaigns on the social and environmental impacts of technological innovation.
In 2026, with support from Luminate, she launched the Latin America Data Center Observatory , the first regional initiative dedicated to investigating, documenting, and monitoring the human rights and socioenvironmental impacts of data center development across the region. The Observatory brings together a broad international coalition of academics, activists, artists, environmentalists, and communities. Innovation Since 2021, Paola has led the Latin American Feminist AI Network in Latin America and the Caribbean, supporting diverse, multidisciplinary, women-led teams in developing AI technologies rooted in feminist values and centered on the needs of local communities. Following a successful first phase (2021–2024), the network's second phase (2025–2027), supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), will grant $500K USD over two years to advance feminist AI in Latin America. This work draws on the Design Justice Network principles, the De|Center's Design from the Margins framework, the Designs for the Pluriverse framework, and feminist and decolonial methodologies. Policymaking Paola contributes her expertise to several international expert committees, including the OECD Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), UNESCO's AI Ethics Experts Without Borders (AIEB), and Women for Ethical AI (W4EAI).
She has co-led major policy initiatives promoting equality, diversity, and justice in AI ecosystems. Among her key policy contributions are the Recommendation for a Human Rights–Centered AI Policy in Mexico; the report Towards Substantive Equality in Artificial Intelligence: Transformative AI Policy for Gender Equality and Diversity and its companion Guide for Implementation (GPAI, 2024); UNESCO's Women for Ethical AI: Outlook Study on Artificial Intelligence and Gender (2024); and UNESCO's forthcoming AI and Inequalities report.
