Current Projects

Developing Agentic Computing Identities Through Computational Justice Programs

Through a partnership with the Dr. Hector P. Garcia Memorial Library, my team and I are co-designing a computational justice program model that can support girls of color (ages 13-16) in developing agentic computing identities. An agentic computing identity describes the ability to view oneself as an active participant in computing with the knowledge and skills to enact social change and control future life trajectories. A computational justice approach develops concrete computing skills and simultaneously provides opportunities for girls of color to ground those skills in self-directed forms of personal and collective action.

Funder(s): National Science Foundation

Completed Projects

Engaging Libraries in Culturally Responsive STEM Programming

Through a partnership with Ypsilanti District Library, Imperial County Free Library, Tempe Public Library, and the ASU Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology, my team and I are developing a culturally responsive and low-resource model for teaching computational thinking skills in libraries. The project focuses on improving non-cognitive outcomes related to girls’ self-efficacy and persistence, leverages available library resources and expertise, utilizes “unplugged” learning activities, and incorporates inexpensive technologies. We have recently expanded our partnerships to include Big Rapids Community Library and Caro Area District Library! 

Funder(s): Institute for Museum and Library Services

Drawing from feminist science and technology studies (STS) approaches, this project is a data sharing initiative with Black Girls Rock!, a nonprofit youth empowerment organization, aimed at developing a culturally responsive computing framework that is informed by girls’ self-identified cultural markers. The project investigates the varied ways girls of color can direct their own computational learning and proposes a conceptual exploration of culturally responsive pedagogy by addressing the following research question: How can self- identified cultural markers shape the “responsive” nature of computing programs? I aim to develop a conceptual framework that can be used by practitioners and community organizations who are designing and implementing STEM programs for girls of color.

Funder(s): National Science Foundation (PI) 

Feminist Data Manifest-No

In August of 2019,  Marika Cifor and I convened scholars for a “Feminist Data Studies Workshop” at the University of Michigan. The Feminist Research Seminar workshop was motivated by the need to create a space for coalition-building between feminist data scholars working across disciplines. The result of our shared thinking is a collaboratively drafted Feminist Data Manifesto-NO — a set of declarations and commitments for feminist data studies. Situating our work within a long genealogy of feminist thinking and praxis, following Ruha Benjamin we drafted the Manifest-NO as a way to “remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the worlds you cannot live within.”

The first complete draft of the Feminist Data Manifest-No is the collective labor of Patricia Garcia (University of Michigan); Marika Cifor (University of Washington); TL Cowan (University of Toronto); Jasmine Rault (University of Toronto); Tonia Sutherland (University of Hawai’i at Mānoa); Anita Say Chan (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign); Jennifer Rode (University College London); Anna Lauren Hoffmann (University of Washington); Niloufar Salehi (University of California, Berkeley); and Lisa Nakamura (University of Michigan).

Funder(s): Institute for Research on Women and Gender (Co-PI)

Border Quants: Feminist Approaches to Data, Bodies, and Technologies Across Borders

I am collaborating with four scholars to examine the use of quantifying technologies by women across multiple communities in the borderlands. The work produced by this feminist research cluster is interdisciplinary and challenges assumptions about the uses of digital technologies among women of color as solely corporate tools for surveillance by revealing the unexpected spaces of empowerment and critique along the US-Mexico border. We are currently collaborating on a book proposal that examines self-tracking from our interdisciplinary perspectives. Members include: Patricia Garcia (University of Michigan), Marika Cifor (University of Washington), Jacque Wernimont (Dartmouth College), and Jessica Rajko (Wayne State University).

Funder(s): ASU Seed Grant for Transborder Communities (Co-PI)

Intersectional & Social Constructionist Approaches to STEM Education for Girls of Color

In my research with CompuGirls, a STEM program for adolescent girls, I examined the mutually constitutive relationship between technology, gender and other intersecting identity categories, such as race and class.  I argued that an intersectional view of technology can dismantle the language of objectivity surrounding technological artifacts by revealing how gender, race, and class are integral components of the social shaping of technology and by extension participation in technological initiatives, such as STEM outreach programs. I demonstrated how an intersectional and social constructionist approach to technology education can challenge stereotypes of girls of color as passive victims of technology and provide a counter-narrative that can empower girls of color to form generative and agentic relationships with technology.

Funder(s): National Science Foundation (postdoc)

Accessing Archives: Digital Platforms, Primary Sources, and Inquiry-Based Learning

With the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards, K-12 teachers are required to utilize primary sources as tools to promote inquiry-based learning. My dissertation used ethnographic methods to investigate how teachers use digital archival platforms to access primary sources and create online communities for sharing instructional materials. By examining the practices of teachers who are actively teaching with primary sources, my dissertation disentangled the complex relationship between unstated educational practices, national educational standards, and the archival processes that are undertaken as part of classroom instruction.

Participatory Culture in Networked Environments

As a member of Part Lab, a collaborative research group housed in the Institute for Society and Genetics at UCLA, I have studied the multidimensional nature of public participation on the Internet, including studying crowdsourced citizen science and free and open source software (FOSS) projects. I contributed to the creation of a database documenting 102 heterogeneous cases of online participation and the development of a web-based evaluation platform that allowed for group-oriented comparative case analysis. The research resulted in a co-authored article published in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) titled “Seven dimensions of contemporary participation disentangled,” which presented seven defining characteristics of online participation.

Funder(s): National Science Foundation (grad researcher)