Welcome ...

... I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington. I direct the Data Ecologies Lab (deLAB). 

I am a sociologist of science and technology. I study how information technologies and technical experts are reshaping our contemporary world. My focus is often on research infrastructures, the networked sociotechnical organizations that support the activities of science by providing access to resources such as data, specimens, collaborative tools or computational cycles. These are sometimes called cyberinfrastructures, and increasingly appear under the header of data science. I have investigated such infrastructures in various domains, including geoscience, HIV/AIDS, ecology and particle physics. (click here for 'what is a domain?')

I have a doctorate in Sociology, but I usually inhabit the interdisciplinary intersections of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Information Studies. My methods are ethnographic, historical-archival and comparative. I study infrastructure by observing and working with scientists, technical workers and other experts as they go about their daily activities. I also dig into the histories of infrastructure by tracking the entangled trajectories of scientific research, information technologies and objects of investigation.

My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Moore and Sloan Foundations. My work has been published in  information studies venues such CSCW and JAIS; and Science, Technology Studies venues such as ST&HV and SSS. Please see my publication page or Google Scholar page for more details.

I am also a co-organizer of digitalSTS and Knowledge Infrastructures, which are both community-building efforts at the intersection of STS and information studies. I am co-organizing Data Then and Now, a UW speaker series at the intersection of STS, data science and history. I am book editor for the journal Science Technology & Human Values (ST&HV).

For the most part, you will not find me on any form of social media. 

So, what does it mean to say that I am a phenomeno-technical thinker?