In November 2025, Denis Peskoff (he/him) began his position as a Bellwether Postdoctoral Scholar, working alongside School of Information Professor Diag Davenport. We spoke to Peskoff about his interests outside of their work and what he was working on before joining the I School.
Before joining the School of Information, what were you working on? What drew you to the I School and UC Berkeley?
My last paper was “Who Does NLP for Social Good, and Where?”. I have a PhD in computer science but I’ve benefited from exposure to sociology and linguistics departments. The interdisciplinary research questions being asked at the I School and the overall computer science strength of UC Berkeley was impossible to turn down.
What are you most looking forward to about being here?
This is data leakage since I’m already on campus. Berkeley has been a phenomenal intellectual environment. Since I bike to work, it’s also been a phenomenal physical environment (daily high of 55 and generally sunny, in January).
What’s a fun fact people may not know about you?
I do photography. Shoutout to the Berkeley Art Studio that developed my first film.
What are you reading or watching right now?
Middlemarch or the Olympics.
