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Education

Research Interests

Online social networking, cyberanthropology, cybersecurity, sustainable/intentional communities, 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 Experience

  • August 2009-Present – 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-Present - 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 Berkman Center for Internet & 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 Experience

  • 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, 2011 (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

  • 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-Related Experience

  • March-Dec 2010 – Social Media Intern, 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.

Miscellaneous Skills and Experiences

  • Competency with most Windows and Mac platforms (currently learning Linux)
  • Web Design (HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, Flash)
  • Graphic Design (Illustrator, Photoshop)
  • Video Editing (Final Cut Pro, iMovie).
  • Social media consulting (Facebook, Twitter).
  • Extensive knowledge of research tools and software (DEVONthink, PulsePen, social bookmarking, mindmapping software).
  • Proficient with SPSS.
  • TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Certificate awarded July 2008 from ITTO (International Teacher Training Organization).
  • Fluency in Danish, conversational in Spanish, literate in French, familiarity with Swahili.

Organizations

  • American Anthropological Association (AAA)
  • Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR)
  • Moving Anthropology Students Network (MASN)
  • Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness (SAC)