Vance Ricks

Research interests

• Friendships and parasocial relationships online
• Human-computer interaction
• Artificial intelligence

Education

• PhD in Philosophy, Stanford University
• BA, Guilford College

Biography

Vance Ricks is an associate teaching professor at Northeastern University, holding joint appointments with the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. Ricks’ teaching and research focus on ethical dimensions of computer technologies, and he is affiliated with the Algorithm Auditing Research Group at Northeastern.

Ricks earned his doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University and was an associate professor of philosophy at Guilford College before joining Northeastern in 2021. He contributed and co-edited the Mozilla Foundation’s Responsible Computer Science Challenge Online Playbook, which explores the piloting of curricula that integrates ethics with undergraduate computer science training. Outside of research and teaching, Ricks is an enthusiastic long-distance bicyclist and a cook.

Labs and groups

• Algorithm Auditing Research Group

Projects

Recent publications