Steve Jackson is a Professor of Information Science and Science and Technology Studies at Cornell. His research combines work from human-computer interaction, STS, the social sciences, law, and policy to study how people build and maintain value and meaning in and with the worlds around them. He’s especially interested in problems of maintenance, repair, infrastructure, and collaboration, and the times and places where emerging computational practices meet shifting social and ecological (‘more-than-human’) worlds. He has published more than 90 peer reviewed papers, received support from funders from the US National Science Foundation and World Bank to the Social Science Research Council, and gives keynotes and invited talks around the world. For more see: https://infosci.cornell.edu/content/jackson.
Jen Liu is a PhD candidate in Information Science at Cornell University and a research fellow at the Critical Infrastructures Lab at the University of Amsterdam. Her work investigates the ecological, social, and political dimensions of computing technologies using ethnographic and design research methods. In her dissertation, Jen examines the relations between climate change and Internet infrastructures in coastal communities. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and holds a Masters in Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University.
Johan Michalove is a PhD student in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. His research focuses on developing new conceptual tools (using code and philosophy) and ethnographic strategies for studying algorithms in the world, from the planetary scale to the urban. He’s currently conducting an ethnography of delivery drivers and the algorithms that govern them in the streets of New York City. This project draws upon Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis. Previously, he was a member of The Terraforming design research program at the Strelka Institute of Media, Architecture, and Design. During his master’s, Johan researched mobile robotics in the Personal Robotics Lab, launched a low cost robotics platform for research and education called MuSHR and helped develop course materials for an undergraduate robotics course. The robots are now found in universities and maker spaces around the world. For more information, see micha.love.
Amy’s work explores the evolution of craft and the ways in which computational practices alter classical forms of work. Her PhD dissertation in Science and Technology Studies focuses on three sites adapting to technological change: a fine art furniture studio integrating digital fabrication technologies, an operating room transitioning to robotically-oriented surgical procedures, and a luthier’s workshop combining empirical knowledge with neural networks. Collectively, these reveal emergent forms of artisanal practice, reconfigurations of teamwork and collaboration, and innovative transdisciplinary pathways for both developing and transmitting new knowledge and expertise. She works as an Instructional Designer at Cornell’s Center for Teaching Innovation and has a BFA and MST in studio art from Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate NY.
Jacqueline Woo is a student at Cornell University pursuing an undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (IDS). Having dedicated some time throughout her undergraduate career majoring in Computer Science (CS) with an interest in cyber security, Environment & Sustainability (E&S) with a concentration in Environmental Policy & Governance (EPG), and Information Science (IS a.k.a. Info Sci) with double concentrations in User Experience (UX) Design and Digital Culture & Production (DCP), she decided to combine her interests in these fields into a self-designed curriculum under IDS with a central focus on Sustainability in Technology and Design. Feel free to connect with her at linktr.ee/jacqueline_c_woo.
Daniel Mwesigwa is a PhD student in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. He broadly studies the design and governance of sociotechnical systems, questioning the benefits and costs that these systems produce. Using anthropological and social informatics lenses, he studies financial infrastructures in the global majority world, centering the informal practices that inform commercial design and adoption of new technologies like AI in the making credit relations. His research centers moral values and their role in structuring expert and ordinary life in different social spaces and spheres of practice. Daniel has previously worked as a technology researcher and policy analyst in civil society and the private sector in Uganda. He is a research affiliate of CIPESA, a leading technology policy think tank in Africa and was an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard from 2020 – 2024.
Ritik Batra is a PhD student in Information Science at Cornell Tech, co-advised by Thijs Roumen and Steve Jackson. His research focuses on how digital fabrication processes can promote more sustainable practices with “materials-driven” computational design tools. He is currently conducting early ethnography work to study classical crafting techniques and workflows that balance material engagement, functional designs, and the tacit knowledge of the craftsperson. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences with minors in Political Economy and Data Science from UC Berkeley. For more information, check out his website: ritikbatra.com