Education
Doctor of Philosophy, Communication, Expected 2013, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA.
Master of Arts, Anthropology, May 2008, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
Thesis: The Virtual Campfire: An Ethnography of Online Social Networking
Advisor: Elizabeth Traube, Anthropology Department Chair
Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, May 2007, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, May 2007, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT.
TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Certificate awarded July 2008 from ITTO (International Teacher Training Organization).
Interests
Cyberanthropology
Online Social Networking
Intentional Communities
Hackerspaces
Social Media Tools for Community-Building
Cyberpsychology
Digital Ethnography
Digital Literacy Skills
Transliteracies
Online Identity Performance
Online Memorialization
Neotribalism
Youth Subcultures
Electronic Dance Music Cultures
Autoethnography
Phenomenology
Proxemics
Science Fiction
New Age Folklores
Modern Mythologies
Research
August 2009 – Jan 2010 – Research Assistant, Howard Rheingold.
Mentor: Howard Rheingold
Project: 21st Century Literacies
Responsibilities: Map out tools and literature on the topic of assessing credibility of information found online.
June 2008 – Aug 2010 – Research Assistant, Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Mentor: danah boyd
Project: Digital Natives
Responsibilities: Conducted an extensive review of interdisciplinary literature pertaining to the subject of deliberate self-harm and the internet, including popular discourses, quantitative and qualitative studies, legal and grassroots initiatives.
February – June 2008 – Research Assistant, Harvard University Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Mentor: Stephen Schultz
Project: Media Cloud
Responsibilities: Mass organizing of news stories and blog posts from around the world; tracking the circulation of memes and posing research questions.
Fall 2006 – Ethnographer, Wesleyan University Academic Library Services
Mentor: Michael Roy
Project: Ethnoproject on student study spaces.
Responsibilities: Assemble and conduct interviews with student focus groups; multimodal inquiry into desired future study spaces on campus.
Teaching
Winter 2012 – Graduate Teaching Instructor, University of California, San Diego.
¬ Assisted Professor John McMurria for COSF100: Communication as a Social Force.
Winter 2011 – Graduate Teaching Instructor, University of California, San Diego.
¬ Assisted Professor John McMurria for COSF100: Communication as a Social Force.
Fall 2010 – Graduate Teaching Instructor, University of California, San Diego
¬ Assisted Professor Barry Brown for CoHi100: Communication and the Person / Human Information Processing.
Summer 2010 – Graduate Teaching Instructor, University of California, San Diego
¬ Assisted Professor David Serlin for COCU172: American Television in the 1970s.
Spring 2010 – Course Reader, University of California, San Diego
¬ Assisted Professor Nadine Kozak for COSF178: The Information Age: In Fact and Fiction.
Fall 2007 – Teaching Assistant, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
¬ Assisted Professor Gina Ulysse for Anthropology 201: Contemporary Anthropological Theory
Fall 2006 – Course Assistant, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
¬ Assisted Mike Roy for his Continuing Education course on social media, including demonstrations of social networking, blogging, and Second Life.
Summer 2005 – One-on-One Aide, Special Education, New Hartford BOCES, NY
¬ One-on-one assistant to an 18-year old mentally retarded girl enrolled in the BOCES summer school program.
Spring 2005 – Teaching Assistant, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
¬ Assisted Professor Henry Danso for Psychology 105: Foundations of Contemporary Psychology.
1998-2002 – English Language Tutor, Utica Refugee Center, Utica, NY
¬ Tutored local immigrants in English one afternoon a week.
Publications
In preparation. “The Digital Graveyard: Online Social Networking Sites as Vehicles of Remembrance,” in Mike Wesch and Neil Whitehead (eds.), Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End/s of Anthropology. University of Colorado Press, 2012 (Forthcoming).
Winter 2011. “Pro-Self-Harm and the Visibility of Youth-Generated Problematic Content,” with danah boyd and Alex Leavitt. Journal of Information Law & Society.
June 2010. “Weaving the underground web: Neotribalism and psytrance on Tribe.net,” in Graham St. John (ed.), The Local Scenes and Global Culture of Psytrance. Routledge: New York & London.
May 2008. “The Virtual Campfire: An Ethnography of Online Social Networking,” Master’s thesis, published online at The Virtual Campfire.
Talks
November 16, 2011. “Reimagining the ‘Global Village’ in an Age of Networked Materiality: Designing Online Spaces for Group Coordination, Participation and Collaboration,” at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada.
Panel Title: No Matter Where: Tracking New Media Materialities and Ideologies.
Panel Organizers: Matt Bernius and Adam Fish
November 21, 2010. “Weaving the Underground Web: Neotribalism and Psytrance on Tribe.Net,” at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA.
Panel Title: Embodiment, Trance, and Gender: Papers on the Anthropology of Consciousness.
Panel Organizer: Jeffrey MacDonald.
December 8, 2009. “The Digital Graveyard: Online Social Networking Sites as Vehicles of Remembrance,” at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
Panel Title: Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End/s of Anthropology.
Panel Organizers: Neil Whitehead and Mike Wesch.
April 24, 2008. New Media & the Internet Panel, Wesleyan University.
Speakers: Jenny Ryan and Sam Han.
Web Experience
June 2011-Jan 2012 – Information Architect, Banq Design
¬ Started a web design business with a partner, working with WordPress and empowering our clients to use the technologies we provide.
March-Dec 2010 – Social Media Consultant, The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
¬ Consulting for social media outreach campaigns; tabling at conferences and events.
Jan 2008-June 2008 – Blogger, iggli.com
¬ Regular blogger for an online youth community about music and social networking trends.
June 2006-Dec 2007 – Website Reviewer, EONs.com
¬ Reviewing websites for a startup online community geared toward tthe baby boomer generation.
Sep 2005-June 2006 – Webtech, Social Psychology Network
¬ Daily site maintenance, data accumulation, and various web-based tasks.
June 2004-June 2007 – WebTech, Wesleyan University
¬ Training and experience working for professors: Website design, HTML, CSS, Photoshop, MS Office, Flash, Dreamweaver, Illustrator.