As an undergraduate student, I did some short term ethnographic research (over the course of about a month) in the form of interviews and participant observation. As a PhD student, I conducted preliminary ethnographic research in both Urequio and in Southern California before beginning my digital fieldwork in July 2021 which is currently ongoing.
Field work on integration of bioplastics at the municipal level in the United States, exploration of 'open data' and digital citizenship agendas in Virginia, US; local and global variations of "smart city" in the U.S. and China with a co-ethnographer
I have done extensive field research in India and the United States, and have active collaborations in East Asia (Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Cambodia) -- mostly focused on people and places dealing with significant environmental vulnerability and harms. I've worked ethnographically with many environmental activists and health scientists who do very impressive data work -- that has inspired by investment in digital research infrastructure and archive ethnography.
I’ve conducted two relatively small ethnographic projects on public transportation (one on my own in Orange County and one with a class in Philadelphia). I’ve also done a lot of ethnographic observation in elementary schools, primarily in West Philadelphia music classrooms with undergraduate student volunteers.
First, I would point out that ethnographic method is used, co-opted and reinterpreted in many disciplines outside of anthropology. I see my work as engaging in educational ethnography. I have work around issues of informal learning, youth activism, and disability studies. More recently I position myself as an ethnographer within K-12 schools conducting fieldwork on governance and teaching during the complex, conjoined disasters of COVID-19 and our nation's racial reckoning.
Aging-in-place and elderly care in Troy, NY (2006-2008); Coal disasters and air quality in East Tennessee (2009); multi-sited study of asthma care (2009-2017); perceptions of environmental governance in Philadelphia, including climate change (2013-2019); energy vulnerability and just transitions in the US mid atlantic (2017-ongoing)
My early ethnographic researched focused on the design of digital infrastructure in refugee shelters in Germany. I have also collaborated with researchers in informatics to develop so-called cultural probes for participatory technology design with elderly citizens. In 2019 I co-organized ethnographic field campuses in St. Louis, Missouri and New Orleans, Louisiana, and carried out field research in Port Arthur, Texas. In 2020-21, I did preliminary fieldwork in Taiwan, focusing on Formosa Plastics plant communities in Yunlin County and Kaohsiung.
I conducted in-person and “tele-fieldwork” in Austin from October 2019-April of 2021, investigating local efforts to transition the city to renewable energy. I have also co-organized short, ethnographic field campuses in New Orleans (2019) and St. Louis (2018). I was the lead organizer for a field campus in Austin (2020) that was cancelled due to the pandemic.
I have also led or co-led ethnographic design projects, like Visualizing Toxic Subjects and Visualizing Toxic Places, which was hosted by the UCI Center for Ethnography in 2018 and 2019 (respectively.
At the onset of the Pandemic, I began participating in a digital collaborations to study the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic from a transnational STS perspective.
Later that year, I also joined the Energy Rights Project’s ethnographic investigation of energy vulnerability in the mid-atlantic region of the US.
I have also had experience in developing and hosting “PECE Training” sessions, and worked as a PECE consultant for the UCI Newkirk Center’s Essential Workers in Covid-19 project.