Research
Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology
University of Southern California
Degree expected May, 2008
My dissertation--Communities of Innovation: Cyborganic and the Birth of Social Media--examines the way a group of San Francisco Web workers integrated new media and networked technologies into their work and lives during the first phase of the Web's development as a popular platform (1993-1999). The place and period of my fieldwork has turned out to be particularly seminal in terms of the rise of new social forms--from genres of networked media (e.g. homepages, mailing lists, intranets, blogs, open source software) to new modes of working and living associated with their development and use. Cyborganic was "an influential early Web community" whose members were on the launch teams of Wired magazine, Hotwired (the first ad-supported online magazine), c|net (a computer-focused transmedia network), and the Apache project. The genres, media, discourses, and cultural practices developed in this milieu were not only key to the initial development of Web publishing, but also prefigured the "Web 2.0" initiative for online collaboration, collective knowledge creation, and social networking (e.g. blogs, Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, del.icio.us). Distinct, but hardly alone, Cyborganic is part of the larger cultural history of personal computing, computer networking, and telecommunities through which technoculture and counterculture coalesced in the Bay Area over the twentieth century.


Research Analyst
Emerging Technologies Group
Institute for the Future
Menlo Park, CA

1996-1997
Consultant to the Outlook Project on Intranets and Telecommunity -- an ongoing research project on group oriented technologies and services, including: groupware, computer-supported collaboration, computer-supported cooperative work, new media, multimedia, Internet, and intranets. Co-designed and conducted a study of intranets in Fortune 500 companies, public institutions and private online communities. Led interview team and was a contributing author on "Creating the Corporate Commons: The Intersection of Intranets and Telecommunities".

Teaching
Lecturer
Information & Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
2002 - present
For the last five years, I have taught upper division ICS majors in two required courses: Technical Writing (ICS 139w), and The Social Analysis of Computerization (ICS 131). In the first, students learn to write instructions, specifications, and proposals; make oral presentations, and develop effective and analytic visualizations, charts, and graphs. In the second, I teach students to recognize and analyze the ways technical content always operates in a non-technical, social context that is central; and to articulate (in a term project) how they might apply the skills and insights of social analysis to their future work as technologists.
Courses: Technical Writing, Social Analysis of Computerization

Lecturer
Cinema Department
San Francisco State University
1994 - 1996

Instructed cinema majors in the technical, narrative, and aesthetic techniques of Super-8 and 16mm film production.
Courses: Introduction to Film Production, Advanced Film Production

Assistant Lecturer
Freshman Writing Program
University of Southern California
1990-1993

Taught expository writing for 6 semesters. Developed curriculum to build writing skills and motivate students. Participated for two years in the honors Freshman Only Program, teaching writing in conjunction with an introductory course in Social Anthropology.
Courses: Composition 101, Composition 102

Teaching Assistant
Anthropology Department
University of Southern California
2003 - present

Courses: Exploring Culture Through Film, Introduction to Anthropology, Anthropology of Religion, Ethnic Studies