What worlds are we creating through technology design, and what worlds might we want to create?

I am a professor in Information Science and Science & Technology Studies at Cornell, where I lead the Culturally Embedded Computing group.

My work integrates ethnographic and historical analysis of the social implications of technology with design methods to suggest alternative future possibilities. Much of my work explores people, places, experiences and values outside the mainstream attention of technology design, and what could happen if we instead center them in design considerations. My primary research fields are Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)/Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Science & Technology Studies (STS).

My current research emphasis is on the effect of infrastructure in rural communities and how to improve its design. As part of this work, I have been engaged in a long-term design-ethnographic and historical study of sociotechnological change in the small, traditional settler fishing community of Change Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador. This work analyzes how changing sociotechnical infrastructures are implicated in changing orientations to time, technology, and labor on the infrastructural edge.

I am using lessons from this work to inform contemporary design of infrastructure for digital agriculture through an NSF project on the Societal Impact of Farm Networking.  In collaboration with Hakim Weatherspoon (CS), Steven Wolf (Natural Resources), and the Interaction Research Studio at Northumbria University, our team is integrating social-scientific analysis, research through design, and technical development of cutting-edge farm networking research to understand and improve the societal outcomes of high-bandwidth farm networking.

I am a member of the field of Computer Science, am affiliated with Visual Studies and Art, a member of the Cornell Institute for Digital Agriculture and a faculty fellow of the Atkinson Center for Sustainability.