Marta
I am an Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst. My research examines how digital data shape organizational life as generative, performative, and relational objects that organize people, structure values, and shape the possibilities for how we work, decide, and think together in the digital world.
I study how data are built, managed, and lived with, and how, in the process, they come to carry social and ethical consequences. Whether in the design of personal data, the development of AI, or the production of trace data in everyday work, my aim is to understand how data embed values and influence human possibilities for recognition, judgment, and thought.
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If my work resonates with you, whether you study, teach, or work with data, I’d love to exchange ideas.
This perspective informs both my research and teaching. I design learning experiences that help business students and professionals think critically and creatively with data: questioning assumptions, tracing consequences, and imagining more responsible uses of digital technologies in organizational life.
My work has appeared in leading journals including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. I also co-lead Data Studies Bibliography, a global community of scholars advancing the study of data as a core object of inquiry across disciplines.
At the heart of my work is a simple belief: that how we understand and engage with data determines not only what organizations can know, but also what people can become.
When Data Became a Question
My fascination with data began in the mid-1990s in Poland, where my father worked as a self-taught database engineer. I grew up surrounded by the language of tables, records, and possibilities. One day, he sat me down and said what I still remember as: “Today is a very important day. We connected our database to the internet. This changes everything.” That moment left an imprint on me, and I’ve been trying to understand ever since:
- What are data?
- What changes when they go online?
- Why do data matter so deeply?
These questions have guided my research, shaping how I think about about digital data as active forces in how we live, organize, and think together.
