Wee blog post on data interoperability

A recent blog post on data interoperability that appeared in the 4S blog Backchannels. It recounts my experience presenting to the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP)

http://www.4sonline.org/blog/post/what_is_data_interoperation_made_of

Seeking Postdoc

The Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW) Seattle seeks an ethnographer of data science for a 36 month (2.5yrs) postdoctoral research scientist position, starting January 2017.

The hired candidate will work with Prof. David Ribes in Seattle, and in collaboration with Geoffrey C. Bowker (and an additional postdoc) at the UC Irvine School of Informatics.

The postdoc will collaborate in the investigation of the Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs and Spokes program (BDHubs), an NSF funded “umbrella organization” for US Big Data and data science. This project will investigate the ongoing activities at the BDHubs and its partner institutions, their emerging plans for the future, and will tie these to the history of research infrastructures. The goal is to understand the rise and institutionalization of ‘the data sciences,’ including organizational, methodological, epistemological and infrastructural transformations at the nexus of science, industry and state.

The ideal candidate will be trained in the social and/or information sciences and have a  grasp of the field of Science & Technology Studies (STS); have good communication skills; have a strong background in qualitative methods; and be able to navigate a highly interdisciplinary field of investigation. Additional methodological skillsets welcome!

At UW the postdoc will be encouraged to engage with a variety of related investigations of big data and data science by scholars in HCDE, the iSchool, ethnographers at the eScience Institute, and the broader Science, Technology and Society Studies (STSS) network.

Reviews of applicants begins October 1^st 2016 and the position will remain open until filled. To apply, please submit:

1) a brief letter;

2) a curriculum vita;

 3) a sample of scholarly work; and

4) the names of two university faculty members who can serve as referees (no letters of recommendation required).

Specific questions regarding the research profile of the position should be addressed to David Ribes (dribes@uw.edu)

Please apply for the position here.

Moving to University of Washington

During the summer of 2015 I am packing up my life in DC and moving to Seattle to join the faculty in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington. I couldn't be happier or more excited about this move, with many excellent colleagues and collaborators in the department and across the university.

digitalSTS open for reviews!

Our experiment in Open Access and alternative academic publication continues! Authors have uploaded their draft publications and the digitalSTS site is now open for reviews from scholars of any background. Please head to submit.digitalsts.net to see the papers and submit your reviews. New users welcome!

If you are new to digitalSTS please head to digitalsts.net to find out about the background of this project.

CSCW and iConference

At CSCW I had the honor to be a panel discussant in Wanda Orlikowski's Lasting Impact Award for her classic 1992 paper 'Learning from Notes.' I discused her approach to multi-scalar analysis and the value of sustaining such approaches in CSCW. See below for a picture of Wanda, myself, and my collaborating panelists, Judy Olson and Pernille Bjørn.

At the iConference I conducted a workshop on Trace Ethnography in collaboration with my co-organizers, Amelia Acker, Stuart Geiger, and Matt Burton. Trace ethnography is a multi-method approach that draws together "thick"ethnographic insights and the analysis of online digital traces. We conducted an on-the-fly live trace ethnography of the iConference itself as a way of imparting the method to participants. Workshop site here.