Burcu Baykurt is an assistant professor of urban futures and communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the critical study of technology and culture, and their role in the reproduction of social inequalities. She is currently writing a book based on fieldwork and interviews she conducted over three years in Kansas City, where residents and public officials have partnered with Google and Cisco to test a gigabit internet service and a smart city program respectively. She examines in what ways digital infrastructures change how the city manages and experiences urban inequalities. 

Other projects include a history of nationalism in the U.S. tech industry and how cities use dashboards to track and report on COVID-19, which is supported by the James Carey Urban Communication Grant. Another book, Soft-Power Internationalism: Competing for Cultural Influence in the 21st Century Global Order, with Victoria de Grazia (Columbia University), was published in 2021.

Burcu Baykurt served as an External Evaluator for the 2022 Just Tech Fellowship.