Desmond Patton

Desmond Upton Patton is the thirty-first Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor and the Waldo E. Johnson Jr. Professor of Communication. He holds joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication, with secondary appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine and at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Dr. Patton is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine, an Obama Foundation USA Leader, a Mozilla Rise 25 Change Agent, a Presidential Leadership Scholar, a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, and one of RockHealth’s Top 50 in Digital Health. Professor Patton’s groundbreaking research examines the relationship between social media and gun violence, grief, and loss, focusing on how online communities influence offline behavior. As a social work scientist, Patton identified that traditional data science methods often fail to capture the cultural and linguistic nuances of predominantly Black and Hispanic youth. In response, he developed the Contextual Analysis of Social Media (CASM) framework, which integrates culture, context, and inclusion into machine learning and computer vision analysis. He is also pioneering a new research agenda on joy, developing a practical and theoretical framework for integrating joy into AI model development as a tool for equity, imagination, and human connection.