Professor Vallor's research areas of expertise are the ethics of AI and philosophy of technology, and applied virtue ethics. Her current research focuses on the impact of emerging technologies, particularly those involving artificial intelligence and robotics, on the moral and intellectual habits, skills and virtues of human beings. She is a past President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, and from 2018-2020 served as a Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google.

Her work has appeared in the journals Philosophy and Technology, Minds and Machines, Ethics and Information Technology, Techne, Inquiry, and Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, as well as two monographs from Oxford University Press: The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (2024) and Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (2016). She serves on numerous advisory boards for organisations in the tech policy and governance space.

Professor Vallor has a special interest in the integration of ethics with technical practice in industry and computer science, and engages in public outreach on this subject with a range of stakeholders inside and outside academia, including government, industry, law, media, and public policy professionals and advocates. Her professional honors include the World Technology Award in Ethics (2015), the Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence (2015) and the Public Intellectual Award  (2017) from Santa Clara University, and the Covey Award from the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (2022).