Patricia Garcia

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. I conduct action-based qualitative research on the complex relationship between race, gender, technology, and justice. In collaboration with public libraries and community organizations, I design computational justice programs that support youth in seeing themselves as active decision-makers who can leverage computing for individual and collective action (NSF CAREER). These computational justice programs historically contextualize forms of community in/justice and support youth in situating their computing identities within broader positive self-concepts and in ways that highlight how the intersections of race and gender can function as sources of power, rather than simply sites of marginalization.

My other related work investigates how data is generated, captured, analyzed, and deployed in public service contexts, such as homeless services and public education systems. Based on findings from these investigations, I create educational interventions that support vulnerable populations in decision-making processes that facilitate greater control over their data. I plan to grow this research area by collaborating with data practitioners to imagine how the concept of critical refusal can be used to enact more equitable data practices. This work is informed by and done in collaboration with the co-authors of The Feminist Data Manifest-No.

My work contributes to the fields of information studies, computing education, learning sciences, youth studies, and critical data studies.

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