I am a PhD researcher at the University of Washington Information School, where I study how people become who they are with and through technology. My work examines identity formation across multiple sociotechnical scales—from the ways cities read their residents, to how technologies embed into and reshape the body, to the intimate, reflective practices through which people craft themselves into being.
Across these domains, I pursue a central question:
How do sociotechnical systems define, constrain, or expand who a person is allowed to be—and how do people push back to reclaim the ability to narrate their own identities?
Cities as Sites of Legibility and Misrecognition
At the urban scale, I explore how civic data infrastructures and algorithmic governance structure public life. Smart-city systems attempt to categorize residents, often determining whose needs are visible within policy and whose are overwritten by computational logics. My work includes empirical studies of civic data regimes, analyses of smart-city imaginaries, and a policy-facing scoping review of how HCI engages with governance and public accountability.
Bodies as Sites of Autonomy & Control
At the embodied scale, I examine cyborg futures, biohacking cultures, and the politics of embedded technologies. Through speculative inquiry and cultural analysis, I investigate how implanted systems can both expand and constrain bodily autonomy—supporting emergency medical interventions, reproductive control, or gender-affirming care while raising concerns around proprietary control, planned obsolescence, and unequal access. These tensions reveal how personhood itself becomes contested terrain under emerging technological paradigms.
Craft and Slowness as Practices of Self-Making
My third line of research centers crafting and material making in HCI as modes of slowing down and re-situating identity. Through textile work and contextual creation, I study how people renegotiate their relationships with technology, using craft as a space to resist technological determinism, reclaim autonomy, and articulate alternative forms of selfhood that computational systems often fail to recognize.
An Integrated Research Agenda
Though my projects span cities, bodies, and craft, they share a unified focus:
understanding how identities are co-created with technologies, and how sociotechnical systems can be reshaped to support more just, humane, and self-determined futures.
My work combines qualitative inquiry, critical algorithm studies, urban informatics, and design scholarship to build analytic and conceptual frameworks that foreground recognition, agency, and care.
Leadership, Community, and Service
I serve as Co-Chair of the Doctoral Student Association for the iSchool, where I help build supportive, equitable, and collaborative environments for doctoral researchers. In this role, I organize community-building programming, lead initiatives to improve student experience, and act as a liaison between doctoral students, faculty, and administration. This work reflects the same commitments that guide my research: recognition, voice, and the right to participate fully in institutional life.
Teaching & Mentorship
In the classroom, I bring my research commitments to bear on teaching in design methods, cybersecurity, and gender and technology. I emphasize critical engagement with sociotechnical systems and encourage students to consider how design decisions shape experience, access, and identity. My goal is to empower students to create technologies that honor a diversity of lived realities.
Professional Foundations
Before beginning my Ph.D., I worked as a Senior Analyst at Aleada Consulting, where I led privacy research and project management efforts supporting clients navigating complex data protection and compliance landscapes. This practice-oriented background informs my current focus on accountability, governance, and the lived impacts of computational systems.
I earned my undergraduate degree from Cornell University in Information Science and Government. My concentration in Information Science was Ethics, Law, and Policy and UX, and my concentration in Government was Political Theory. I also earned a minor in Law and Society.
Recognition
My academic and professional work has been recognized through conference travel awards and nominations, including for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, acknowledging contributions to research, teaching, community-building, and critical sociotechnical inquiry.
July 2025: Had my article A City That Thinks—But Doesn’t Overthink published in the ACM XRDS Magazine.
April 2025: Attended the CRA-WP Grad Cohort Workshop for Diversity in Computing in Denver, Colorado, and presented a lightning talk on my upcoming paper, “I don’t know if the light is what I really should be afraid of”: Transparency and Ethics in Smart City Governance.
December 2024: Passed my General Exam to achieve candidacy status, and received my Masters of Science in Information Science.
May 2024: My first presentation at the CHI Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, presenting Begone, Orthot: A Near Future Exploration of Bodily Autonomy.
April 2024: Attended the CRA-WP Grad Cohort Workshop for Women in Computing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I received invaluable feedback on my CLEAR poster.
February 2024: Invited to present my research at my alma mater, Cornell University, where I gave a presentation entitled “Digital Marble: Chiseling Data Sovereignty into Tomorrow’s Technology“
August 2023: Awarded a scholarship to attend the CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Conference, where I engaged with a vibrant community of diverse computing professionals.
September 2022: Began my PhD in Information Science at the University of Washington, marking the start of an exciting chapter in my academic career.
October 2021: Honored to be nominated for Forbes 30 Under 30 for my impactful work in consulting, a recognition that continues to inspire my research and professional endeavors.