Once again we faced an embarrassment of riches in selecting postdoctoral researchers. It is exciting to see the diversity and quality of research coming up and gives us great optimism as we think about the future of research about social dimensions of technology.

We are delighted to introduce two new Postdocs who will join us in July 2016.

 

Dan Greene, University of Maryland

Dan Greene is currently a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Maryland, a University Flagship Fellow, and a researcher in the Ethics & Values in Design Lab. A former social worker, Dan’s research focuses on the technologies and institutions that teach us how, why, and where to work in the information economy. His dissertation draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork to explore the reproduction of the digital divide and how urban institutions like startups, charter schools, and public libraries make the problem of poverty a problem of technology and remake themselves in the process. As a post-doctoral researcher, Dan will be researching the automation of human resources management, particularly the development of technologies for hiring and firing. His work has been published in TripleC, Surveillance & Society, and the International Journal of Communication, and can be found at dmgreene.net

Dylan Mulvin, McGill University

Dylan Mulvin joins the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research from McGill University, where he is completing a PhD in Communication Studies. He researches the history of technology and the cultural politics of media. His dissertation considers the media practices of engineers, scientists, and bureaucrats in the crafting of measurement standards. His work on the history of video, television, and standards, has appeared in Television & New Media, The Journal of Visual Culture, and The International Journal of Communication. He is co-editor, with Jonathan Sterne, of a special section of the IJOC on temperature and media studies. At MSRNE Dylan will begin a history of the Year 2000 Problem, better known as the Y2K bug (no, he did not lose a bet). This history attempts to recuperate the Y2K bug as a major repair event, an often overlooked milestone in public computer pedagogy, and one of the greatest recent efforts to train individuals, community groups, and policy makers in the management of precarious technological systems.