Hummd Alikhan

I’m a PhD researcher at the University of Washington Information School studying how technologies participate in the making—and unmaking—of the self. Across my work, I examine moments when systems attempt to define who a person is, and moments when people reclaim the ability to define themselves.

My research spans data-driven cities, embodied technologies, and craft-based design, but all of it centers on the same question: 

How do sociotechnical systems shape the boundaries of identity, agency, and recognition? 

In urban contexts, I study how civic data regimes and algorithmic governance determine whose lives become legible to institutions. In work on cyborg futures I explore how bodies become sites of both autonomy and proprietary control. Through analysis of craft and slow design, I investigate how making becomes a practice of resisting system-imposed identities and constructing more intentional relationships with technology.

Whether through policy-facing analyses, qualitative studies, or material inquiry, my work asks how technologies can support—not distort—the ways people understand themselves and move through the world.