Five Questions with Assistant Professor Barbara Kiviat

(September 2025)

For this edition of our Five Questions Q&A Series, we're happy to feature the department's newest faculty member: Assistant Professor of Sociology Barbara Kiviat. Barbara is an economic sociologist who studies how moral beliefs and other cultural understandings shape markets and justify the inequalities they produce. Before joining Columbia, Barbara was on the Sociology faculty at Stanford, where she taught for a number of years after receiving her PhD in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard in 2019. We're truly thrilled to have Barbara back at CU (ask her about her degree from Columbia Journalism School), this time as a faculty member here in Knox Hall. 

To learn more about Barbara, read her answers to our questions below!

BK

1. What research projects are you currently working on?

I’m at the tail end of two projects about the moral economy of algorithmic prediction—my book on the cultural foundations of actuarial fairness, and a paper with Carly Knight (NYU) that looks at risk-based pricing as a classed rationality. Those seek to understand how people morally reason about the use of personal data in insurance and consumer lending, industries where customized pricing has long been the norm. I’m now turning my attention to the emergence of personalized pricing in retail, where we’re witnessing a transformation away from fixed prices. I’m interested in how new market categories (such as “surveillance pricing”) are legitimated and contested, as well as the effects that different people paying different prices has on broader social attitudes. I’m also working on a series of co-authored papers that use nationally representative survey data to understand how people assess their credit quality and what leads it to be good or bad.


2. What is one piece of research that has really inspired you (either recently or while you were a student)? How has it influenced your sociological imagination?

Early on, Kristin Luker’s book Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood opened my eyes to the power of cultural sociology. It showed me how qualitative research can capture competing worldviews—how sociology can make sense of beliefs and ways of living that certain readers might originally find unimaginable. More recently, I’ve been obsessed with Lorraine Daston’s book Rules, which traces how the form rules take has changed over the centuries. Like many works of history, it shows there’s nothing inevitable about the way we’ve structured our society. We can make different decisions if we want to.


3. If you weren't a sociologist, what would be your career?

Before I was a sociologist, I was a journalist, and I can't imagine having never done that. I'm grateful for that chapter of my life, including the year I spent at Columbia Journalism School. As for what might have been, I'll go with pilot or even air traffic controller. I have a lifelong love of airplanes. I still find every flight magical.


4. What is the last song you listened to? What artists or albums have you had on heavy rotation recently?

I’m honestly not sure what I listened to last, but probably a showtune or a symphony. If you want to talk pop culture, TV is my game.


5. This isn't your first time living in New York City. What did you miss while you were in Cambridge and Palo Alto that you're excited to do/see/have again?

Friends and family more than anything. The subway is a close second. I could ride all day long, watching people and studying the cars and tunnels. I’m also thrilled to be back to walking long distances around the city, taking in the architecture and street life, talking to strangers. 

Thanks, Barbara! Welcome to the department!