Michelle Spektor

Michelle Spektor is a historian of biometrics and a postdoctoral scholar in the social and ethical responsibilities of Computing at MIT's College of Computing.

Spektor's research examines the role of biometric technologies in the global consolidation of states and citizens since the late 19th century. How did biometrics, which were first developed as tools of exclusion within eugenics, criminology, and colonial expansion at the height of the British Empire, become essential parts of ID cards and other tools states use to identify their citizens in the Digital Age?

By tracking the global historical relationships between state power, national identity, and innovations in biometric technologies, her work offers insights into the social and political stakes of biometric surveillance today. Spektor shows that state biometric systems are not just technical tools of citizen data collection, but also political tools for deciding who, exactly, belongs in the nation.

Her work has been supported by the Society for the History of Technology's Kranzberg Award, the National Science Foundation, and a Fulbright fellowship. Previously, she was a Lecturer at Tufts University’s Science, Technology, and Society Program, and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the Institute for Human-Centered AI, at Stanford University. She has a PhD in history, anthropology, and science, technology, and society from MIT.