Researcher · Writer · Ethnographer

Alex Rosenblat

Investigating how technology reshapes consumer choice. Author of Uberland. Currently researching and reporting on dark patterns in healthcare.

The Markup & CalMatters Formerly Uber Data & Society Ph.D. Candidate

About

Research at the intersection of technology, design, and human experience

I audit opaque systems through qualitative research. My work surfaces what’s broken, then translates between different disciplines, industries, and institutions needed to close the gap.

At Uber, I evaluated algorithmic workflows and product features for fairness, transparency, and trust. I also built and managed programs that surfaced driver and courier concerns across a global platform and channeled them into internal advocacy, product decisions, and policy changes. Before that, I spent seven years at the Data & Society Research Institute, conducting fieldwork across 25 cities that became the book Uberland. While gig economy companies promised that anyone with a smartphone app could become an entrepreneur, I found that ridehail drivers do have a boss — an algorithmic one.

I’m currently investigating dark patterns in healthcare registration—the design choices that steer patients into sharing more data than they realize, or consenting to things they haven’t meaningfully agreed to. This work appears in The Markup & CalMatters and STAT News.

Experience

Building research that moves institutions

2025 –

The Markup

Director of Sociotechnical Research

Leading multi-state ethnographic investigations into dark patterns in healthcare by examining how consent design, data-sharing defaults, and registration flows shape patient decision-making.

2021 – 24

Uber

Head of Marketplace Policy, Fairness & Research

Built a company-wide ethnographic initiative surfacing unmet user needs and product outcomes through structured driver conversations. Managed the Listen, Act & Close the Loop program that surfaced user needs at scale and translated them into priorities for product and policy changes.

2014 – 21

Data & Society Research Institute

Senior Researcher

Seven-year independent research program on the gig economy. Researching how shifting narratives reshape the categories through which we evaluate work and consumption. Testing those frameworks against the empirical reality of how technologies affect workers in their everyday lives. 125+ interviews and 400+ field observations across 25 cities, resulting in a book, peer-reviewed publications, and regulatory impact.

Book

Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work

A foundational ethnographic study of ridehail work across the gig economy in the U.S. and Canada, based on four years of fieldwork. Examines how algorithmic management structures information and power for workers on ridehail platforms.

Translated into Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Reviewed in leading academic journals. Covered in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and MIT Technology Review and international media.

University of California Press · 2018

125+

In-depth interviews

400+

Field observations

Cities researched

Languages translated

Selected Work