I study how people use technology to make sense of cultural things. I teach in the Department of Anthropology at Tufts University, where I also direct the program in Science, Technology & Society.
I’m working on a book about the many meanings of attention today, with a particular focus on everyday techniques of measurement and valuation. Its working title is Attention Fragments, and it’s under contract with the University of Chicago Press. I’ve recently published related work on the use of clues in identifying AI-generated writing and on mouse jigglers, aerial photography, and demonic attention-sinks. A couple more pieces, on driver monitoring systems and ideologies of attention in anthropology, are in the pipeline.
My first book is about the people who make music recommender systems and how they think about music, listening, and listeners. It’s called Computing Taste (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
I’ve been spinning up a new research and teaching project on the anthropology of contraptions, which examines technical complexity as a social, aesthetic problem. I convened a series of contraptions panels at the American Anthropological Association meetings in 2025 and the Society for Social Studies of Science conference in 2026. We’ll see what happens next.
At Tufts, I have a secondary appointment in Computer Science and represent the critical sociotechnical perspective in a variety of campus AI initiatives, including two task forces, a council, a steering committee, a working group, and a few hiring committees.
I’m a faculty associate with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and a fellow in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s Future Flourishing Program.
I also maintain a side interest in visual representations of information overload, especially illustrations of people overwhelmed by paperwork.