The following is a list of research projects I am currently, formerly, or peripherally involved in. Click on the images to access the blog update sections for each.
Mapping Knowledge Investments during the Marcellus Shale Gas Rush
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This is a new project I will be starting as a graduate research assistant in Fall of 2011. Abby Kinchy in RPI STS recently received a 2-year NSF grant to study the sociocultural complexities of how and why water quality monitoring groups are enabled or prevented from operating in NY and PA.
The purpose of this project is to collect ethnographic and sociological data to map these knowledge “hot” and “cold” spots using GIS software. Ultimately, our aim is to “examine the social production of knowledge and ignorance about the impacts of unconventional shale gas drilling” in these areas. You can find a description of the grant here…
Culturally Situated Sensing
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Alternatively known as the RPI Community Sensor (see the website here), this project sprang from a collaboration between myself, Louis Gutierrez in the Computer Science Department, and Christopher Shing in the Electrical, Computer & Systems Engineering in Fall 2010. The three of us were brought together as researchers on the NSF funded GK-12 Triple Helix project under PI Ron Eglash.
We began with the premise that environmental monitoring and educational platforms based on monitoring could find wider distribution through open source technologies and participatory projects with target communities. In Spring of 2011 we collaborated with a team of 12 senior capstone design students to develop the sensor and in Summer of 2011 I ran a series of workshops on the Navajo Nation and at Northern Arizona University in collaboration with educators working in climate change and air quality monitoring.
Additionally, using environmental sensors often require the use of maps in order to contextualize sensor data. Mapping can also be a gateway to thinking about how different kinds of factors influence a community. Useful maps not only include things like water or air quality statistics, but also locations of cultural and social value such as historical sites, nearby schools, and protected land. When people take on the task of constructing a “community resource maps” with information important to their community, this is referred to as Participatory Mapping – a foundational component of the RPI sensor project. Participatory-built maps have a number of advantages over generic maps. Not only are they made to answer certain questions about a community, but they also contain information that might otherwise not be included on generic maps. The combination of participatory sensing and the construction of community resource maps forms a practice I refer to as Culturally Situated Sensing.
You can read more about how Culturally Situated Sensing can be utilized in my 2011 paper “CULTURALLY SITUATED SENSING: Peer Innovation and Citizen Sensing in Native American Communities” commissioned by the Experience Insight Lab at Intel.
Culturally Situated Design Tools
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In the Summer of 2010 Ron Eglash, Professor of STS at RPI, invited me to participate in the Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) working group to continue developing the Navajo Rug Weaver simulation software (see the CSDTs website here). Rug Weaver and its partner CSDTs represent an effort to engage science, technology, math and engineering (STEM) topics in youth education by tapping into cultural artifacts that represent mathematical concepts in cultures beyond typical classroom curricula. A number of these tools are guided by traditions in Native American culture that are integrally connected to mathematical concepts we might otherwise think come from Western Euro-centric scientific traditions. As part of this collaboration I was invited to conduct workshops on the Navajo Nation at Dine College, NM, which also initiated my connection to this continuing field site.
My involvement in the CSDT initiative continues in my collaboration with the Design Innovation and Society studio at RPI. As part of this program students are asked to develop educational technology with participating schools in the Albany NY capital region.
