Hi, and welcome
to my portfolio.

I'm digital media scholar researching the history and cultural impact of computation. I currently serve as Assistant Professor in the English Department and Cultural Studies PhD Program at George Mason University. I received my PhD in Communication, Rhetoric & Digital Media from NC State University in 2016.

My work examines how society influences and is impacted by machine learning and big data, with an increasing emphasis on data bias and data ethics. My current focus is on computer vision, image recognition, and racial and gender bias in visual datasets.

My book project examines the heteronormativity of the computer vision-powered content filters that currently detect and block 'pornographic' and 'racy' images online. I show how heteronormative bias creeps into our digital discourse, the worldview of coders, the code they write, the datasets they train that code on, and their decisions about how to adjudicate this bias after the fact.