whatknows :: do you?

Profile

A friend recently summed me up nicely: “In a single conversation you might be talking about the latest Java widget but turn around and explain it with some philosopher like Foucault.” That is what you get when you blend professional and academic work across social sciences, cultural studies, marketing, technology, and the arts. In this way my academic and professional work draw from each other. Theory becomes grounded with the demands of applicability, and practice remains forward thinking.

My interests typical revolve around the various ways in which people interact with each other and technology. I am particularly interested in how users collaborate with technology and how technology is socially constructed. My blog and current projects are the best way to get a sense of the way I currently see the world. The rest of the background information here includes things about which I am particularly proud.

Current Diggs

PhD Student (Starting Fall 2009)
Informatics @ the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine

Current Interests

Theoretical/Research Applied
Human Computer Interface User Experience and Front-end Design
Digital Identity and Persistence Digital Identity Standards & Infrastructures
Computer Mediated Communication Usability and Web-analytics
Ubiquitous Computing Componetization of front-ends via AJAX and SOA

Current Projects

Identity Infrastructures

  • My thesis resulted in a broad set of theoretical perspectives on the role of identity as a social infrastructure. This summer I am carving my thesis into articles, while also working at the AAMC on enterprise technical standards, and most recently on the Medbiquitous standards (think digital identity for medicine).

craigslist Missed Connections: Practices of anonymity and identification in digital and non-digital spaces

  • This chapter has finished up, and is off to the press. Keep an eye on my blog for an announcement of “New Technologies of the Self” — coming soon!

Education

M.A., Communication, Culture & Technology
May 2009
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Thesis: “I am an ID: Non/persisting our sociotechnical digital identities”

B.S., Psychology
May 2004
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Summa Cum Laude

Thesis: “Coming Out with Stories: Macrocontextual effects on the coming out stories of young gay men”
Senior Project: “Electronic Research Application (ERA): Improving observational research methodology through the use of online multimedia integration.”

A.S., Psychology
Honors
A.A., Dance, Theatre, Music
Honors, Distinction in Dance
A.F.A., Musical Theatre
Honors, Distinction
Western Wyoming College, Rock Springs, WY
May 2001

H.S. Diploma
June 1999
Olympus High School, Salt Lake City, UT

Technical Knowledge

I have worked in technical capacities for over a decade. During this time I have learned many programming languages and skills, the best of which are typically indicated by some funny acronym. Here are some of my favorites:

Java, Spring Framework, JSP

PHP 4-5, Zend Framework, Zend Platform, Smarty

Flash, Actionscript 1-3, Flash Remoting Server

JavaScript/DHTML, AJAX, Dojo, YUI, ExtJS, GMaps2, and the obligatory HTML suite (i.e., X/HTML, XML, CSS, etc.)

Apache 1.3-2.x, MySQL 4-5, Oracle 9i-10g