About

I study the social structure of science from both normative and descriptive perspectives.

On the normative side, I have contributed new conceptual tools and norms for science. My conceptual work on peer review bias has motivated changes to peer review processes at AI conferences, including the development of a new algorithm to measure and detect commensuration bias (see Shah 2022, Noothigattu, Shah, and Procaccia 2021). Most recently, I have proposed an epistemology for AI tools used to evaluate science (Lee 2026).

On the empirical side, I have worked with funding institutions to study equity in grant review and funding, including Black-white disparities in National Institutes of Health R01 grants and gender disparities in Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Awards. I have also studied gender homophily in co-authorship across the JSTOR corpus.

My research has been published in venues across fields (e.g., Science, The Lancet, Philosophy of Science) and funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and a Career Enhancement Fellowship (funded by the Mellon Foundation and administered by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars).

I'm honored to have received the Philosophy of Science Association's Prize in Philosophy of Science & Race as well as (with Elena Erosheva) First Prize for most creative submission to NIH's Peer Review Challenge.

I'm a Director at Rapid Science and previously served as an Advisory Board member for the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines and ASAPbio.

At the University of Washington, I'm a member of the AI Governance Committee and served on the Steering Committee for the UW Faculty 2050 Report. I'm Affiliate Faculty with the Center for an Informed Public, eScience Institute, Society + Technology Program, Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, and Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.