Affiliate Positions
- Director, Technology & Social Change Group
- Research Fellow, Center for an Informed Public
- Affiliate Assistant Professor, UW Information School
- Affiliate Instructor, UW Jackson School of International Studies
Specializations
- Misinformation & Digital Literacy
- Digital Knowledge Politics
- ICT & Development
Research Areas
Biography
My work explores the politics that shape what forms of knowledge come to matter within different socio-cultural contexts, with an emphasis on the role of technological practice in shaping these epistemic politics. My research asks, for example, how the use of information & communication technologies are re-shaping colonial hierarchies that exist between Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge systems, and how socio-cultural and emotional dynamics produce vulnerabilities and attachments to misinformation. My projects strongly emphasize community-based, participatory approaches with applied goals, but are also inspired by and draw from a broad range of postcolonial, feminist, and critical theories. Much of my research is done in the context of the Arctic. You can find a list of my active projects below.
In addition to my research, I am the Director of the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA). TASCHA is a multidisciplinary center whose research explores the relationship between digital technologies and society, with an emphasis on applied work grounded in community engagement. TASCHA researchers engage in critically-minded, community-based research with an emphasis on international partnerships and qualitative methods. One of our primary missions is to build and support a community of practice at the iSchool that is interested in critically interrogating the complex and rapidly changing relationship between technology, society, and the environment. In this pursuit, we provide space and resources for students, faculty, and researchers to come together to collectively experiment with methods and processes that support ethical collaborations and cutting-edge, community-based research. Please reach out if you are interested in engaging with TASCHA!
I am open to accepting a PhD student for the 2024-2025 cohort - please do reach out to me if you are interested in working together and thinking about applying to the iSchool! I am particularly interested in admitting students that seek to do research in the areas of digital knowledge politics, nature/society relationships, and Arctic and Indigenous studies, but am open to prospective students that intersect any of the active projects listed below:
Co-Designing Civic Education in the Circumpolar North - This NSF-funded planning grant supports an international set of collaborators to develop a research agenda for designing and implementing civic education approaches contextualized to the Arctic.
Indigenous Wellbeing in the Arctic - This project supports interdisciplinary and interepistemological research into Arctic Indigenous wellbeing, with the goal of developing educational resources that communities can use to support
develops culturally-specific educational resources that Arctic communities can use to support their own wellbeing and resilience.
Indigenous Connectivity - This project seeks to design and implement community networks for and with Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon. It explores the ways in which digital technologies produce new opportunities for Indigenous communities to engage in collective environmental politics and cultural regeneration, while simultaneously reproducing epistemic and colonial hierarchies within those politics.
Co-Designing for Trust - This NSF-funded project is a collaboration between academic and community researchers, librarians, educators, and other partners working to design community-oriented solutions to misinformation. The project seeks to create locally-contextualized digital literacy resources that holistically address the ways that misinformation exploits our minds, emotions, and social circumstances.
Exploring the Benefits and Challenges of Community-Powered Connectivity in the New Arctic - This NSF-funded planning grant explores the potential role of community networks - or, telecommunications infrastructure designed, implemented, and managed by communities - in addressing existing digital divides for Arctic Indigenous communities.
Innovations for Community-Held Infrastructure - This project, funded by the NSF Smart & Connected Community program, is co-developing new technologies (e.g., edge services, wireless sensors) that make community networks more useful and empowering for urban BIPOC communities.
Advancing Library Visibility in Africa (ALVA) - This project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, develops tools to support public library systems across the African continent as they engage in locally-relevant sustainable development efforts.
Education
- Ph D, Geography, University of Washington, 2017
- MA, Geography, University of Washington, 2012
- BA, Geography, Miami University (Ohio), 2009
Publications and Contributions
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Journal Article, Academic JournalAuditing Google's Search Headlines as a Potential Gateway to Misleading Content: Evidence from the 2020 US Election (2022)Journal of Online Trust & Safety, 1(4)
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Journal Article, Academic JournalGender dynamics in high school policy debate: Propagating gender hierarchies in advocating 'better' futures (2022)Gender and Education
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Journal Article, Academic JournalWhat makes an ideal partner? African libraries and neoliberal discourses in international development (2022)Applied Linguistics
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Journal Article, Academic JournalData challenges for public libraries: African perspectives and the social context of knowledge. (2021)Volume 37(2), pp. 292-306
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Journal Article, Academic JournalPublic Libraries and Development Across Sub-Saharan Africa: Overcoming a Problem of Perception (2021)Libri
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Journal Article, Academic JournalAfrican Libraries in Development: Perceptions and Possibilities (2020)International Information & Library Review
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Journal Article, Academic JournalBenefits of Crowdsourcing for Libraries in the Global South: A Case Study from Africa (2020)IFLA Journal
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Journal Article, Academic JournalBenefits of Crowdsourcing for Libraries in the Global South: A Case Study from Africa (2020)The IFLA Journal
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Journal Article, Academic JournalData challenges for public libraries: African perspectives and the social context of knowledge (2020)Information Development
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Journal Article, Academic JournalDisinformation as the weaponization of cruel optimism: A critical intervention in misinformation studies (2020)Emotion, Space and Society
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Journal Article, Academic JournalEnvironmental colonialism, digital indigeneity, and the politicization of resilience (2020)Environmental Planning E: Nature and Space 0(0), pp. 1-22
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Journal Article, Academic JournalThe Role of Libraries in Misinformation Programming: A Research Agenda (2020)Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
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Journal Article, Academic JournalVolunteer geographic information in the Global South: barriers to local implementation of mapping projects across Africa (2020)GEOJOURNAL, ISBN/ISSN: 0343-2521
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Journal Article, Academic Journal
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Journal Article, Academic JournalRural digital geographies and new landscapes of social resilience (2019)Journal of Rural Studies
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Journal Article, Academic JournalThe new knowledge politics of digital colonialism (2019)Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space
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Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-NewKnowledge Politics (2018)Digital Geographies
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Book, Reprint in TranslationUkiuqta'qtumi-Hivuniptingun – One Arctic, One Future (2018)One Arctic: The Arctic Council and Circumpolar Governance
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Journal Article, Academic JournalCanadian Inuit, digital qanuqtuurunnarniq, and emerging geographic imaginations (2017)Geoforum, 86(Unknown Issue), pp. 53-62
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Journal Article, Academic JournalParticipatory Uses of Geospatial Technologies to Leverage Multiple Knowledge Systems within Development Contexts (2017)World Development, 93(Unknown Issue), pp. 389-401
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Journal Article, Academic JournalPolar Bear Management in a Digital Arctic: Inuit Perspectives Across the Web (2016)The Canadian Geographer, 60(4), pp. 574-91
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Journal Article, Academic JournalSubaltern empowerment in the Geoweb: Tensions between publicity and privacy (2014)Antipode, 46(2), pp. 574-91
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Journal Article, Professional JournalThe Spatial Politics of Affect and Emotion in Participatory GIS (2013)Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 103(4)
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Journal Article, Academic JournalThe use of participatory mapping in ethnobiological research, biocultural conservation, and community empowerment: a case study from the Peruvian Amazon (2012)Journal of Ethnobiology, 32(1), pp. 6-29
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Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-NewThe Maijuna Participatory Mapping Project: Mapping the Past and the Present for the Future (2010)Peru: Maijuna
Presentations
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Beyond Super Searchers: Public Libraries in the Age of Misinformation.
(2023)
Public Library Association - Online
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Auditing Google’s Search Headlines as a Potential Gateway to Misleading Content: Evidence from the 2020 US Election
(2022)
Stanford Trust and Safety Research Conference - Virtual
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Community Approaches to Misinformation
(2021)
UW iSchool - Virtual
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Development Organization Interviews: Perceptions and Possibilities for African Libraries
(2021)
African Library & Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) - Online
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Library Survey: Current Data Practices in African Libraries
(2021)
African Library & Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) - Online
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Panel Discussion: Recommendations from the ALVA Pro
(2021)
African Library & Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) - Online
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Going Public: Opening Scholarship to All
(2020)
UW Libraries, University of Washington - Seattle, Washington
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Advancing Library Visibility in Africa
(2019)
3rd African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) Conference & 5th African Library Summit - Nairobi
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Exploring The Benefits and Challenges of Community-Powered Connectivity In The New Arctic
NNA Annual Meeting - Virtual
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Knowledge Politics Across Digital Divides: Environmental Change, Indigeneity, and Technology Use in the Arctic
Development Studies Association 2018 Conference - Manchester, UK