About

Ruha Benjamin is a scholar whose work examines the social and political dimensions of science and technology, with a particular focus on issues of race, social justice, and public engagement in scientific research. Her book, 'People’s Science: Bodies & Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier,' explores the political and social implications of stem cell initiatives in America, highlighting how political expedience and promises of a better future often overshadow social equity. Benjamin's research emphasizes the importance of inclusive public participation in science, advocating for the voices of marginalized groups such as people with disabilities, African Americans, and women to influence scientific agendas and outcomes. Her work critically analyzes the autonomy of scientists and promotes a vision of radically inclusive engagement in scientific processes. Grounded in the context of California’s voter-driven investment in stem cell research, her scholarship investigates whose interests are served, whose bodies are involved, and which groups benefit from scientific advancements. Benjamin’s contributions are significant for understanding health disparities, biological citizenship, and the politics of knowledge-making, making her a key voice in discussions about democracy, social justice, and science policy.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Criminology
• Law
• Biology
• Medicine
• Art history
• Psychoanalysis
• Art
• Ecology

Selected publications

• The Augmented Undercommons: A Framework for Liberatory HCI Research within Ethically Compromised Institutions

  2026-04-13 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Sociocultural engineering research is being systematically attacked under the current US government, pressuring researchers to eliminate cultural inquiry from our work. These attacks present an existential crisis for HCI because technological innovation and understanding cultural impact are fundamentally intertwined. Marginalized HCI practitioners are at particular risk from these policies. Compliance with authoritarian demands is untenable. We need strategic, principled ways of resisting. We propose the augmented undercommons, a framework grounded in Harney and Moten’s undercommons that supports liberatory, culturally grounded technology development parallel and in opposition to ethically compromised institutions. We outline five guiding principles, demonstrate their use in HCI through three case studies, and reflect further on one principle’s dimensions in practice. The augmented undercommons builds upon past knowledge from oppressed scholars to offer one possible survival strategy for our current moment, while critically reflecting on the HCI community’s current and future responsibilities.

  PublisherDOI

• Updated Results of RESTART Protocol (RadiothErapy bridging and conSolidaTion for CAR-T) in Large B-cell Lymphoma

  International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics · 2025-09-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Results of a Comprehensive Prospective Protocol of Radiotherapy Bridging and Consolidation for CAR T in Large B Cell Lymphoma (RESTART)

  International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics · 2024-09-27

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Race After Technology

  2023-04-28 · 25 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Interestingly, the MIT data scientists interviewed by anthropologist Kathleen Richardson were conscious of race, class and gender, and none wanted to reproduce these normative stereotypes in the robots they created. Richardson contrasts her findings to that of anthropologist Stefan Helmreich, whose pioneering study of artificial life in the 1990s depicts researchers as “ignorant of normative models of sex, race, gender and class that are refigured in the computer simulations of artificial life.” More importantly, the ideological commitments of dominant groups typically determine what gets awarded credit in the first place, automating social reproduction. This implicates not only race and ethnicity; depending on the fault lines of a given society, merit systems also codify class, caste, sex, gender, religion, and disability oppression.

  PublisherDOI

• P1169: ELEVATED CRP AT INFUSION OF AXICABTAGENE CILOLEUCEL PREDICTS HIGH-GRADE CAR-T TOXICITY AND OUTPERFORMS MORE COMPLEX SCORES

  HemaSphere · 2022-06-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background: Predicting CRS and ICANS prior to CAR-T infusion is desirable as it may help to plan management. Two groups1,2 have recently shown that a modification of the Endothelial Activation and Stress Index (EASIX) score, developed to predict toxicity in bone marrow transplant recipients3, can predict CRS and ICANS severity in CAR-T patients, however these have not been externally validated or are difficult to apply in practice. Aims: We aimed to determine whether the EASIX or related scores could predict CAR-T toxicity in our patients and if not, then to identify other potential predictors from the available clinical information. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of adult patients who received axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel) as standard of care at our centre over a 2yr period, collecting data on timing and severity of CRS and ICANS as well as baseline demographic and biochemical factors. We calculated an EASIX score for all patients and an ‘EASIX-F’ score based on the values provided by Greenbaum et al (EASIX-F1) and our own interquartile values (EASIX-F2). We then performed a linear regression of each of: the EASIX score; EASIX-F1; EASIX-F2; and other variables of interest with maximum grade of CRS, with a plan to perform a multivariate analysis with any significant variables (p<0.05). Results: 67 patients were eligible for analysis. Baseline demographics were similar to those described on the licensing trial4. On univariate analysis (UVA), neither EASIX score (p=0.10), nor either iteration of the EASIX-F score (p= 0.08 and 0.15 respectively), was associated with severity of CRS for our patients. Pre-infusion C-Reactive Protein (D0 CRP) however appeared strongly associated with CRS severity, both on UVA (p=0.001) and by multiple linear regression, where it was the only variable identified that showed any association with CRS severity (p=0.003). Given the strength of the D0 CRP and CRS association, we evaluated the association of D0 CRP with ICANS severity which was significant (p=0.012) and D0 CRP with a combined outcome of ‘high grade CAR-T toxicity’ (HGT), defined as development of either grade 3+ CRS or grade 3+ ICANS, where it was again strongly associated (p<0.001). We then dichotomised D0 CRP to determine whether we could identify a practically useful cut-off to predict HGT. We looked at D0 CRP values of ≥50, ≥100 and ≥150 individually and all cut-offs performed well with increasing likelihood of HGT with higher CRP values. With D0 CRP ≥50, probability of developing HGT was 42% vs 13% (OR 5.09, p=0.007); with CRP ≥100 it was 55% vs 14% (OR 7.2, p=0.006); and with CRP ≥150 it was 100% vs 13% (OR undefined, p<0.001). Finally, given these unexpected findings we performed a prospective review of the 19 axi-cel patients treated from our initial data-cut off to 1 Feb 2022 and found that for these patients, a D0 CRP ≥100 or ≥150 predicted HGT well. HGT incidence was 75% vs 7% (OR 42, Fisher’s p=0.016) for both cut-offs because 3 of the 4 patients with HGT had a CRP of >150 (Table 1). The single patient with HGT and D0 CRP <100 interestingly was a non-responder. For the full 86-patient cohort, D0 CRP ≥150 was the best cut-off, predicting a 90% incidence of HGT vs 12% if CRP <150 (OR 42, p<0.001). Image:Summary/Conclusion: On retrospective analysis of 67 axi-cel patients, D0 CRP was more strongly associated with CRS severity than more complex prognostic scores. D0 CRP level, especially if ≥150, showed strong association with high grade CAR-T toxicity and remained predictive in a 19-patient validation cohort. This has potential implications for management of axi-cel patients.

  PublisherDOI

• 2020 Keywords Symposium

  Theory & Event · 2022 · 3 citations

  • Sociology
  • Art history
  • Art

  2020 Keywords Symposium Jennifer C. Nash (bio), Samantha Pinto (bio), Marisol LeBrón (bio), Monica L. Miller (bio), Ann Cvetkovich (bio), Julie Livingston (bio), Psyche Williams-Forson (bio), Ruha Benjamin (bio), Christina Hanhardt (bio), Harris Solomon (bio), Neelima Navuluri (bio), Charles W. Hargett (bio), Peter S. Kussin (bio), Noémi Tousignant (bio), Joshua Chambers-Letson (bio), Tiana Reid (bio), Miriam Posner (bio), Racquel Gates, Sari Altschuler (bio), Gayle Wald (bio), and Banu Subramaniam (bio) 2020 (Introduction) Jennifer C. Nash and Samantha Pinto 125 Abolish Marisol LeBrón 128 Asynchronous Monica L. Miller 134 COVID Silver Linings Ann Cvetkovich 139 Essential Worker Julie Livingston 144 Food-in-Place (Shelter-in-Place) Psyche Williams-Forson 148 Mask Ruha Benjamin 151 Mutual Aid Christina Hanhardt 152 PPE Harris Solomon, Neelima Navuluri, Charles W. Hargett, Peter S. Kussin 158 Risk Factor Noémi Tousignant 163 Social Distancing Joshua Chambers-Letson 169 Stay at Home Tiana Reid 175 Supply Chain Management Miriam Posner 178 Synchronous Racquel Gates 181 Wave/Forest Fire Sari Altschuler 187 Zoom Gayle Wald 192 Zoonosis (Virus) Banu Subramaniam 196 [End Page 124] 2020 Jennifer C. Nash and Samantha Pinto Academic projects are often born from desire. When we began the project of collecting these essays—effectively archiving the present—it was an act of imagining a future when we would look back on 2020. Perhaps this collection—with its snapshot of a horrifying present now past—would offer us one way of remembering how everything about daily life was upended. The promise, always, was that by the time this came to be in print, COVID-19 would be something we needed to remember rather than still part of the ongoing present. Our method was to build a glossary of COVID-19 neologisms, and to come to terms with how 2020 is now its own keyword. This symposium represents the radical and acute—and ongoing—challenges of the pandemic; collapsing social structures that are affecting women, parents, and the economically disenfranchised; the exhaustion of years of unchecked and unbridled White Supremacy in health care, law enforcement, housing, and employment; the contentious election and the Trump administration's refusal to concede. It represents disparate responses to the realities of the "stay at home" orders that started proliferating in the US in March and April of 2020. Essential workers—disproportionately Black and Brown—were ordered to continue working, while others began "panic baking" and "panic shopping" (the disappearance of flour, yeast, and toilet paper from grocery stores marked the first quarter of the year).1 While some buried their dead in anguish and isolation,2 others purchased real estate, thanks to record-low interest rates and new demands for more space as houses were transformed into offices and schools.3 In some ways, this is a quintessentially American story—the variety of ways that crisis is experienced and inhabited, with the starkest and most deathly outcomes reserved for those most precarious as the capitalist machine keeps rolling along. Terms like "the new normal," and the 2020 OED word of the year, "unprecedented,"4 now pepper our collective consciousness as we describe the dizzying changes that 2020 ushered in, and the new endurances it demands of some, as well as the old intractable inequities it brought to the public surface. If the physical and structural shifts were massive and visible in scale, so was the vocabulary introduced to mark these changes, much of it quickly absorbed and normalized. The spring of 2020 called us to "flatten the curve" through social distancing, the summer of 2020 warned us about a "second wave," and the fall and winter of 2020 ushered in discussions about vaccines, immunity, antibodies, and the need to endure the "COVID winter." Bleeding into 2021, crisis and critique have merged into a lexicon that [End Page 125] is repeated, rehearsed, rehashed, remade.5 These terms have become part of a collective vocabulary, a shared index for describing the relentless conditions of the present, even as that present is experienced and endured differently. If we were to continue to build this glossary, we might include terms like Delta, variants, boosters, vaccine mandates, breakthrough infections, and, of course, "the long 2020." In this "long 2020" marked...

  PublisherDOI

• Viral Justice

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2022 · 14 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Criminology

  An inspiring vision of how we can build a more just world—one small change at a time “A book as urgent as the moment that produced it.”—Jelani Cobb, Columbia Journalism School Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day. Vividly recounting her personal experiences and those of her family, Benjamin shows how seemingly minor decisions and habits could spread virally and have exponentially positive effects. She recounts her father’s premature death, illuminating the devastating impact of the chronic stress of racism, but she also introduces us to community organizers who are fostering mutual aid and collective healing. Through her brother’s experience with the criminal justice system, we see the trauma caused by policing practices and mass imprisonment, but we also witness family members finding strength as they come together to demand justice for their loved ones. And while her own challenges as a young mother reveal the vast inequities of our healthcare system, Benjamin also describes how the support of doulas and midwives can keep Black mothers and babies alive and well. Born of a stubborn hopefulness, Viral Justice offers a passionate, inspiring, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones, transforming our relationships and communities, and helping us build a more just and joyful world.

  PublisherDOI

• PH-0329 Feasibility and outcome of bridging RT pre CAR-T in DLBCL in one centre with a wide referral network

  Radiotherapy and Oncology · 2021-08-01 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Afterword

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2021-08-10 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Factors Affecting Outcome of Bridging Radiotherapy (RT) Before CAR-T for High Grade Lymphoma

  International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics · 2021-10-25

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Mahmoud El-Desouki

  6 shared

• Piers Patten

  6 shared

• Robin Sanderson

  5 shared

• G. Mikhaeel

  5 shared

• Andrea Kühnl

  King's College Hospital

  5 shared

• Christopher M. Morris

  Newcastle University

  4 shared

• J.L. Brady

  Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

  4 shared

• A. Leake

  Newcastle Hospitals - Campus for Ageing and Vitality

  4 shared

Awards & honors

• 2023 Stowe Prize
• 2020 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award for antiracist scholarsh…
• 2020 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize for Nonfiction
• President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton (2…
• Marguerite Casey Foundation Inaugural Freedom Scholar Award…