Education
Doctoral Candidate in Jurisprudence and Social Policy
August 2017 - present (expected May 2025)
At the University of California, Berkeley
Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies
Dissertation: “When the Streetlights Come On: How a Smart City Became a Surveillance State”
Committee: Jonathan Simon (co-chair), Osagie Obasogie (co-chair), Calvin Morrill, Nikki Jones, Deirdre Mulligan
Exams: Sociology of Law; Surveillance Studies (passed with distinction)
M.P.P./M.A. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
August 2015 - May 2017
from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University
B.A. in Anthropology/Gender Studies
August 2009 - May 2013
from New College of Florida, the Honors College
Research Interests
Surveillance, Sociology of Law, Policing, Science and Technology Studies, Urban Studies, Black Feminist Theory, Feminist Jurisprudence
Publications
Law Review Article
McLemore, B. (2019). Procedural Justice, Legal Estrangement, and the Black People’s Grand Jury. Virginia Law Review, 105(2), 371–395.
Book Chapters
McLemore, B. (2022). Regarding the Pain of Our Own: Jazmine Headley, Portraiture, and the
Sorrow of Black Motherhood. In L. Deschler Canossi & Z. Lopez-Diago (Eds.), Black Matrilineage, Photography, and Representation: Another Way of Knowing. (pp. 37-52). Leuven University Press.
McLemore, B. & Eby, M. (2022). Abolition as Reparations: “This is America” and the Anatomy of a Modern Protest Anthem. In G.S. Parks & F.R. Cooper (Eds.), Fight the Power: Law and Policy through Hip-Hop Songs. (pp. 251-265). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Book Review
McLemore, B. (2019). Review of Jezebel Unhinged: Losing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture by Tamura Lomax. Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(1), 69-73.
Op-Ed
McLemore, B. (2020, June 14). Defunding the Police is Not the End Goal. It’s the First Step. Truthout.
Policy Brief
McLemore, B. (2021). Policy Recommendations for Building Just and Equitable Smart Cities. Citrus Policy Lab and Taraaz
https://citrispolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/When-the-Streetlights-Come-On_Brie-McLemore.pdf
In Preparation
McLemore, B. “The Right to Choose?: FemTech, Privacy, and the Neoliberal Contradiction” (under revision)
McLemore, B. “‘The Supreme Court is Not Going to Save Us:’ Technology, Policing, and the Governing of Privacy Rights” (To be submitted to Law and Social Inquiry)
McLemore, B. Crime Does Not Thrive in the Light: The Dual Role of Street Lighting in the Construction of Race, Class, and Modernity (To be submitted to Surveillance and Society)
McLemore, B. BBQ Becky and the Ideal Citizen: Surveillance in the Age of Neoliberalism (To be submitted to Cultural Studies)
McLemore, B. and Jones, N. “‘What You Stoppin’ Me For?’: How Real-Time Complaints Against Police Reflect Perceptions of the Law” (under revision)
Awards, Fellowships, and Grants
Dissertation Fellow 2022-2023
Center for Engaged Scholarship
Dissertation Year Fellow 2022-2023
University of California Berkeley
Black Studies Collaboratory Grant 2022-2023
University of California Berkeley
Bendix-Sharlin Fellowship 2022-2023
Global, International, and Area Studies - University of California Berkeley
Graduate Student Fellow 2021
Institute for the Study of Societal Issues - University of California Berkeley
Human Rights By Design Fellow 2021
CITRIS Policy Lab + Tarazz: Technology and Human Rights
Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies Fellow 2020-2021
University of California, Berkeley
Center for Technology, Science, and Policy Fellow 2020
University of California, Berkeley
William P. Heidrich Research Fellow 2019
University of Michigan
Health Policy Research Scholar 2018-2022
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Best Ph.D. Paper Spring 2018
Howard League for Penal Reform International Conference at the University of Oxford
Isak Kazes Prize in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Spring 2017
Brandeis University
Education in Juvenile Detention Facilities certificate Spring 2017
The Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Eli J. Segal Citizen Leader Fellow Spring 2016
Brandeis University
Teaching Fellow Award Spring 2016
Brandeis University
Invited Lectures, Panels, and Discussions
Panelist. (2024) “Struggles Against Empire” at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
Speaker (2023). California Legislature Technology and Innovation Caucus
Panelist (2023). “Sovereignty in the Age of Data” Symposium at the University of British Columbia, Kelowna
Guest Lecturer (2023). Surveillance, Technology, and Race course at the University of California, Berkeley African-American Studies Program
Panelist (2022). “Unsettling Visibilities - Geographies of Anti-Black Surveillance” at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, University of California, Berkeley.
Guest Lecturer (2022). “Anti-Oppression, Surveillance, and Technology” at the Cyclone Co-Op, University of California, Berkeley
Panelist (2022). “Privacy, Technology, and Law” at Kappa Alpha Pi’s Upsilon Class, University of California, Berkeley
Panelist (2022). Data, Prediction, and Law course at the University of California, Berkeley Legal Studies Department
Guest Lecturer (2021). Fung Fellowship for Technology Innovations, University of California, Berkeley
Panelist (2021). “New Directions in Studying Policing” at the University of California, Berkeley Social Science Matrix
Conference Presentations
“‘The Supreme Court is Not Going to Save Us:’ Technology, Policing, and the Legal Uncertainty of Privacy Rights." Law and Society Association. Denver, Colorado (2024).
“Crime Does Not Thrive in the Light: The Dual Role of Street Lighting in the Construction of Race, Class, and Modernity.” Surveillance and Society Conference. Ljubljana, Slovenia (2024).
“Crime Does Not Thrive in the Light: The Dual Role of Street Lighting in the Construction of Race, Class, and Modernity.” St. Clair Drake Symposium at the University of California, Berkeley (2024).
“The Illumination of Power: A History of Street Lighting in the Construction of Race, Class, and Modernity.” 4S: Society for Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawaii (2023).
“The Right to Choose?: FemTech, Privacy, and the Neoliberal Contradiction.” Law, Culture, and Humanities. Toronto, Canada. (2023)
“The Right to Choose?: FemTech, Privacy, and the Neoliberal Contradiction.” Power Over Life and Death: Feminism, Abolition, and the State. University of Chicago (2023).
“When the Streetlights Come On: How Smart Cities Became a Surveillance.” Law and Society Association. Lisbon, Portugal (2022).
“I been here longer than you”: How targeted policing creates the conditions for abolition.” American Sociological Association (2021).
“The Spatialization of Blackness: Policing as a Tool of Gentrification.” American Studies Association. (2019).
“The Policing of Black Mothers in the Afterlife of Slavery.” Women’s History Conference. Sarah Lawrence College. (2019).
“The Policing of Aggrieved Black Mothers.” Thinking Gender: Feminists Confronting the Carceral State. University of California, Los Angeles (2019).
“The Spatialization of Blackness: Crime Mapping as a Tool for Gentrification.” Society for Utopian Studies: Disruption, Displacement, Disorder. University of California, Berkeley (2019).
“The Contradictory Nature of Dissent in Academia” The Critical Ethnic Studies Association 2018 Conference. University of British Columbia (2018).
“The Spatial Eugenics of Crime.” Redesigning Justice: Promoting civil rights, trust and fairness. University of Oxford (2018).
“Theories on the Surveillance of Mothers on Welfare” State of the Field: A Conference for Emerging Scholars in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Stony Brook University (2017).
Research Experience
Graduate Student Researcher Spring 2018 to present
University of California, Berkeley
Supervisor: Dr. Nikki Jones, Associate Professor
Lead manager for a project exploring police and community relations
Early Careers Workshop May 2024
Selected to participate in a workshop hosted by the Law and Society Association
Tech Policy Analyst 2023-2024
Advised tech corporations to adopt intersectional content moderation policies and cease support for police surveillance practices. Color of Change (non-profit based in Oakland, CA).
Data Science for Social Justice Workshop 2023-2024
Selected to participate in a workshop on ethical AI practices at the University of California, Berkeley.
Workshop Participant 2021-2022
University of California, Berkeley
Selected to be a participant for the Berkeley African and African-American History Writers Workshop
Workshop Participant Summer 2021
University of California, Berkeley
Selected to be a participant for the Global Black Feminisms Summer Lab, which is sponsored by the Black Studies Collaboratory at the University of California, Berkeley
Workshop Participant February 2020
University of Gdansk, Poland.
Selected to be a participant for the “Making Sense of Violence in the Digital Age” study circle, which is sponsored by the Nordic Summer University.
Research Assistant 2019-2020
Supervisor: Dr. Jamie Rowan, Associate Professor at UMass Amherst
Conduct fieldwork for a National Science Foundation-funded project on Veteran’s Courts
Law, Culture, and Humanities Workshop Participant March 2019
Carleton University
Selected to participate in a graduate student workshop to focus on my research and professional development
Graduate Student Researcher Spring 2018
University of California, Berkeley
Supervisor: Dr. Calvin Morrill, Stefan A. Riesenfeld Professor of Law
Researcher for a project exploring how low-income communities of color view the law over their life course
Graduate Student Researcher Summer 2018
University of California, Berkeley
Supervisor: Professor Joy Milligan, Assistant Professor
Researcher for archival project on the development of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Graduate Student Researcher Summer 2018
University of California, Berkeley
Supervisor: Dr. Jonathan Simon, Adrian A. Kagan Professor of Law
Researcher for project exploring the evolution of eugenics post-WWII
Graduate Student Researcher Spring 2018
University of California, Berkeley
Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society
Developed a literature review documenting police brutality as a public health issue
Research Assistant Fall 2016 to May 2017
Brandeis University
Supervisor: Dr. Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Senior Scientist and Senior Lecturer
Provide research support, coordination, and innovation for a web-based resource guide on diversity, intersectionality, and public policy
Supported curriculum, course development, and pedagogical advancement
Research Assistant Fall 2015 to Spring 2016
Brandeis University
Supervisor: Anita Hill, University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Explored how Title IX can be used to ensure equal access to education for pregnant and parenting students
Teaching Experience
Instructor of Record at the University of California, Berkeley
Spring 2022 Technology, Surveillance, and the Law
Legal Studies
Summer 2022 Criminal Justice and Surveillance in the Law
African American and African Diaspora Studies
Graduate Student Instructor at the University of California, Berkeley
Fall 2021 Juvenile Justice and the Color of Law
Legal Studies
Spring 2021 Foundations of Legal Studies
Legal Studies
Spring 2020 “Big Ideas:” Prison Course
Legal Studies, Ethnic Studies, African American Studies, Social Welfare
Fall 2019 Punishment, Culture, and Society
Legal Studies
Spring 2019 Punishment, Culture, and Society
Legal Studies
Fall 2018 Property and Liberty
Legal Studies
Summer 2018 Law, Politics, and Society
Legal Studies Summer Session
Teaching Experience at Brandeis University
2016-2017 Writing Center Tutor
Spring 2016 Black Feminist Thought Teaching Assistant
Department of African and African American Studies
Academic Service and Community Outreach
Social Science Research Pathways Mentor 2024 - 2025
University of California Berkeley
Lead a team of two undergraduate students to teach them to collect, code, and analyze data, as well as conduct archival research
Technology and Surveillance Community Outreach Project 2022-2023
Funded by the Black Studies Collaboratory at the University of California Berkeley
Created pop-up libraries in community resource centers and cafes in Oakland, CA, which included easily accessible content, such as zines, comics, and pamphlets, on the threats of surveillance technologies for communities of color. Also hosted a public event in Oakland, CA with Tawana Petty, a prominent Black feminist surveillance activist based in Detroit, MI.
Leadership Development Program of Gender Equity Fellow 2023
University of California Berkeley School of Information
Assisted in the coordination of a workshops and mentorship for women interested in careers in the tech industry
Managing Editor 2021- 2022
Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Scientists
Organized and oversaw recruitment for the graduate journal at UC Berkeley
Supported chief editors and organized communication editors
Editor 2019 - 2022
Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Scientists
Worked directly with noted artists, authors, and thinkers to solicit, review, and edit articles
Women Leadership Intensive Graduate Coordinator 2018
University of California, Berkeley Gender Equity Resource Center
Facilitated a workshop for BIPOC women and gender non-conforming students and community members on leadership skills, coalition building, and self-care
Professional Membership and Affiliations
Law and Society Association
Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
Surveillance Studies Network
Law, Culture, and Humanities
American Society of Criminology