Broadly, my research examines the intersections between material and human agents – typically human communicative and social behavior in technological contexts, as well as human-computer interactions. One strand of my research focuses on collaboration, especially in mediated settings. I’m especially interested in creative organizing processes, the social dynamics of knowledge production, and the collaborative technologies and spaces that facilitate such processes. I also study gender in science and engineering careers and work, exploring the cultural and developmental factors that shape women’s interest in engineering and computer science to understand underrepresentation of women in STEM careers. This research has taken me to study both women and children in China, Europe, the Middle East, and India. Finally, I study privacy and disclosure in sociotechnical contexts, using computational methods to understand the social structure of relationships in digital contexts, and the semantic structures that reflect emergent meanings and discourses.
Overarching each of these research strands is an attempt to extend understanding of the contextual and cultural variations inherent in social and communicative behavior. For example, I have studied cultural variations in the construction of civility, career aspirations and practices of children and women, and the affordances drawn from social media environments that shape communicative practices. I have also examined the material and spatial contexts of communicative interaction, disclosure, and collaboration.
