Benjamin is a professor at Princeton University in the Department of African American Studies. Her academic training is in the fields of sociology and anthropology. Her research and writing are multidisciplinary, ranging from the subjects of technology and science to social justice and medicine. She is the author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013) and Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), and the editor of Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life (2019). She is the recipient of awards from institutions such as the Ford Foundation, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the National Science Foundation. Benjamin is also the founder of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab.

Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019) reflects Benjamin’s longstanding interest in science, technology, and social justice. Her attraction to these subjects far precedes her academic career. As the preface explains, Benjamin grew up in a Los Angeles neighborhood where police presence was ubiquitous. Regularly witnessing pat-downs and hovering helicopters, Benjamin has personal experience with the dangers of being under surveillance. As a Black woman and mother, she writes from a place of concern for the privacy and safety of herself and her sons.