The Latest (June 2009)

• teaching communication theories and academic writing/reading to pre-Master-level students
• mulling on the similarities between research interviews and romantic dates
• wondering if people know or care about the information available on the Internet about them

Overview

I spend much of my time Thinking (reading, writing, teaching, talking, researching) about how people construct their identities and navigate their lives with (and most often without) information and communication technologies.

Highlights

I'm currently an assistant professor in the Department of Communication's Technical and Professional Communication Workgroup at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

For about ten years, I indulged my interest in how people use technology by working as a user researcher for software companies in Silicon Valley (most notably, Sun Microsystems) and for now defunct dot.coms (most notably, Productopia).

My Ph.D. is from the Department of Sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and my undergraduate degrees are in Social Studies and Women's Studies from Harvard College.

Keywords

lifestyle, information and communication technologies (ICTs), class (education-income-occupation), web design skill, sex/gender, research methods, new media, identity and questions thereof, the Web, mobile devices, consumer culture, technologization of intimacy, usability and design research, design personas, e-Government web site design