DISCO Affiliates

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Sara M. Abdulla is a joint PhD/JD student in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University, and works with Dr. Ignacio Cruz in the OrgFutures Lab. Broadly, Sara examines how institutions and power structures, new technologies, and social processes interact. While Sara comes from experimental and computational backgrounds, she employs a variety of methods in her research and aims to take holistic perspectives when approaching questions.

She is particularly interested in how power dynamics related to technologies can be codified and affected within policy, such as in children’s media regulation. Before coming to Northwestern, she worked at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology and prior to that, at CDC in enteric disease surveillance. Sara holds a Bachelor’s in Neuroscience with a minor in Philosophy from Georgia State University, and a Master’s in Analytics from Georgia Tech.

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

LaRisa is a transdisciplinary researcher, Roy H. Park Fellow, and Ronald E. McNair scholar studying religion as a digital and cultural phenomenon. She is an assistant professor in the department of communication at the University of Utah. She will earn her PhD in media and communication from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in Spring 2025. Her research incorporates critical religion and internet research across technoculture studies and digital black religions. Most recently, she was a graduate researcher with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill, where she organized and co-moderated a symposium titled “Religion, Media, and Public Life.” She completed her Master of Arts degree in Radio-Television-Film (Media Studies) at the University of Texas at Austin. Her master’s thesis on live-streaming in churches was revised and published with the Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO

Dez Brown (they/he), publishing as dezireé a. brown, is a Black queer nonbinary Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, interdisciplinary scholar, and sjw, born and raised in Flint, MI. They are the winner of the Betty Stuart Smith Award from the University of Illinois Chicago, where they recently received their PhD in English with concentrations in Black Studies and Gender & Women's Studies. He received an MFA from Northern Michigan University and he was a Quarterfinalist in the 5th Annual Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, often claiming to have been born with a poem written across his chest. They recently served as the 2024 Editor-in-Chief at The Seventh Wave Magazine to curate a folio of creative writing and art focused on the video game genre, and their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Foglifter Journal, wildness, Scalawag, Four Way Review, Obsidian, and the anthology A Garden of Black Joy: Global Poetry from the Edges of Liberation and Living, among others.

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

Alexis-Carlota Cochrane (she/they) is a PhD Candidate (ABD) and Sessional Instructor in the Department of Communication Studies and Media Arts at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Her research examines how platforms perpetuate and reinforce existing social inequities, exploring queer, counter-hegemonic strategies that marginalized users deploy to resist and subvert white-dominant, heteropatriarchal technocultures.

Currently, Alexis-Carlota acts as the Digital Scholarship Coordinator at the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. She is also a member of the Critical Data Studio, the Digital Feminist Network of Canada and a Graduate Affiliate at Northwestern University’s Centre for Latinx Digital Media.

Her work appears in Rivista di Digital Politics, IDEAH, and the edited collection “You’re Muted”: Performance, Precarity, and the Logic of Zoom (Bloomsbury). She was awarded the 2025 King Charles III Coronation Medal for contributions to gender equity in Canada.

Empowerment Through Community

Vee is a disabled organizer and researcher interested in abolitionist approaches to addressing harm, specifically that which is mediated by data and technology. Their research is often conducted in collaboration with grassroots organizations and explores the various ways that state violence permeates through our relationships with institutions, ourselves, and each other and how we can resist it. Vee received her Ph.D and Masters in Social Welfare, and was formerly a Senior Policy Analyst focused on technology and social policy.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Cienna Davis is cultural worker, community organizer, and doctoral candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She co-founded the Black feminist collective Soul Sisters Berlin, where she organized events, performances, workshops, discussions, and art retreats connecting Black women in Berlin. Davis studies transnational Black feminist networks and afro-textured hair as a language and technology that facilitates tactile networks of communication, care, and exchange across the African diaspora. She explores these topics through performance, ethnography, and multimodal research methods, including filmmaking and art curation.

Her writing and speaking on Afrofuturism, Black hair, Black feminism, colorism, digital blackface, popular culture, and community organizing has been published in academic journals, magazines, books, and newspapers in the US, Germany, Switzerland, and Korea.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

As a Fritz Fellow and Senior Institute Associate at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for Technology Law & Policy, Nina-Simone is tapping into the law to help untangle issues at the intersection of technology and policy. Before arriving at the Tech Institute, she was a Fulbright Scholar, lent a year of service through City Year AmeriCorps, and interned at organizations like the Migrant Legal Action Program and Just Futures Law—experiences that deepened her understanding of how technology, law, and society collide in everyday life. You can find her work in outlets like Tech Policy Press and Ms. Magazine, and in several academic journals including the Georgetown Law Technology Review, the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, the Georgetown Journal of Modern Critical Race Perspectives, and the Tulane Environmental Law Journal.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

I am a Ph.D. student in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University. My research focuses on how marginalized communities access, use, and (re)appropriate media technologies. Specifically, I am interested in understanding why these communities engage with media technologies and go online, exploring their perceptions of these technologies, their interactions with them, and their involvement (or lack thereof) in digital spaces. I study these dynamics within the Latinx community and isolated communities using a mixed-method approach.

Born and raised in Santiago, Chile, I hold a BA in Social Communication from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and an MA in Media, Technology, and Society from Northwestern University.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

Megan Fereday is a nonbinary, multiply-neurodivergent PhD student based at the University of Southampton. Their PhD project (funded AHRC) investigates the role of social media platforms in young people’s queer-neurodivergent resistance practices, and explores the possibilities and potentials of digital neuroqueering among younger users.

Megan is a member of the Narratives of Neurodiversity Network and the Queer Medical Humanities Network, and is currently enrolled in the Neurodivergent Humanities Network’s mentorship scheme. Megan’s work has been recently published in the Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change.

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Kim Fernandes is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. They hold a joint PhD (with distinction) in Anthropology and Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Fernandes' research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council and the Taraknath Das Foundation. As a researcher, writer and educator, their work lies at the intersections of disability, data and technology. Fernandes is the Managing Editor of Platypus, an interdisciplinary science studies blog. They are also an affiliate at Data and Society and the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES

Ngozi Harrison is a PhD student in Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Ngozi UCLA Eugene V. Cota-Robles fellow and fellow with the Center for Race and Digital Justice. His research focuses on examining the mathematical, conceptual, and logical foundations of information systems and computation. Ngozi seeks to explore non-western logics and modes of computation to develop liberatory frameworks for algorithmic systems. He received his Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from Menlo College in Atherton, CA. Before returning to the academic world, Ngozi worked at Google specializing in data analysis, equity and inclusion, Adtech and the YouTube ecosystem.

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Mouray Hutchinson is a dedicated computer scientist with a passion for edTech, Human Centered Design, and African American Studies. With a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in African American Studies from the University of Florida, Mouray has applied technical expertise across diverse roles. As a Cybersecurity Intern at Jacobs, she accelerated AWS deployments using CloudFormation and optimized security protocols. In Ghana, she served as a Software Engineering & UX Design TA, leading Agile teams and rapid prototyping workshops. At Youth in Transformation, she engineered a learning management system. Mouray also founded the Sankofa African American Studies Society, growing its membership by 300% in its first year. With experience in React, Node.js, AWS, JavaScript and Scrum, she thrives in cross-cultural and hybrid teams and is eager to innovate at the intersection of software development and human-centered computing.

INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR

With expertise in the areas of Race, Technology, and Learning, Dr. Jones conducts interdisciplinary qualitative research to explore pressing questions of our time at these intersections and explores opportunities to develop mixed-methods approaches to communicating across scholars with specialties in STEM, Education, and the (Digital) Humanities. They work to understand theories of change for the future of learning and technology. For over ten years she has facilitated computing and making (makerspaces) related work. During their PhD, they further developed their teaching to integrate socio-cultural, Black studies, and ethical perspectives on a variety of subject matters. Dr. Jones earned their PhD in Computer Science and Learning Sciences and MS in Computer Science from Northwestern University with specializations in Human Computer Interaction, Ethics, and Accessibility. They earned a BS in Computer Engineering and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University.

KING’S COLLEGE LONDON

tèmítópé (tèmí) lasade-anderson is a writer and researcher. In 2023, she was a Fellow at the Centre of Advanced Internet Studies and, in the same year, was the inaugural research curator-in-residence at the Foundation of Art and Creative Technology (FACT). Her work has been published in academic journals (Feminist Media Studies; Television and New Media) and independent media (DADDY Magazine; The Canary). She is a London Arts and Humanities Partnership/AHRC awardee, completing her PhD part-time on Black women's friendship digital intimacy at King's College London. tèmí is also the Executive Director at Glitch, an international charity that uses advocacy and research to ensure the online information environment is safe and equitable and that internet technologies do not replicate or extend discrimination towards Black women.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

I am a PhD candidate in Sociology at Northwestern University. Broadly, I am interested in how human mobility is shaped by the forces of globalization: namely, technology and climate change. My dissertation examines the “social impact” sourcing sector around refugees who engage in digital work, such as web development and digital marketing. My previous projects have looked at: how organizations train refugees in digital skills; the feasibility of refugee platform co-ops; how the vulnerability of refugees is politically produced at the UN Climate Change Conferences; and how AI is changing occupational work. My field work has taken me to the UK, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Azerbaijan. I am an affiliate with the Science in Human Culture Program at Northwestern, Research Fellow with the Institute for Cooperative Digital Economy at the New School, and founder of the educational initiative, Scientists for Migrant Learning & Education (SMiLE!).

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

Dr. Beza Merid is an Assistant Professor in the ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the Director of the Digital Health and Racial Justice Lab. He holds a PhD from New York University and is a scholar of digital health equity. He studies both the proliferation of efforts to address inequalities in health through technological innovation as well as how these same technologies can work to materialize harm and oppression for the vulnerable populations they purport to help. His work demonstrates how innovative technologies reshape practices of care and how we do health; how our interactions with these technologies are structured by their affordances; and what the decisions we make about design, deployment, policymaking, insurance coverage, and reimbursement processes related to these technologies say about the values we bring to promoting health.

TechEquity

Tim Newman is the Senior Vice President of Labor Programs at TechEquity, focusing on the tech industry’s impact on labor. Before joining the TechEquity team, he was the Director of Worker Impact at Coworker.org where he worked at the intersection of technology and labor, helping working people use digital tools to win meaningful change in their workplaces and researching the impact of emerging technologies on workers. He also supported a committee of workers who distributed mutual aid to their fellow coworkers leading actions to democratize their workplaces through the Coworker Solidarity Fund. Prior to working at Coworker.org, he worked at Change.org and the International Labor Rights Forum. He graduated from Clark University with a degree in Sociology.

Data & Society Research Institute

Serena Dokuaa Oduro is an AI policy expert and writer. She is a Senior Policy Analyst at Data & Society Research Institute, where she develops and executes strategies to advance the organization’s aim to ensure that AI governance is empirically-backed, accounts for tech’s real-world impacts, and serves the public. Her work has appeared in academic journals and news media, including Politico, Tech Policy Press, and Patterns.

Serena’s writing focuses on Black living and ancestry, and also Black feminism and technology. Her poetry can be found in the book Fake AI and in No, Dear Mag, where she also guest edited and curated issue 32, Artifice. She is a recipient of the HUMAN Residency Fellowship, a multi-year fellowship and residency for six artists exploring the intersections of artificial intelligence, the humanities, and social justice.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Wells Lucas Santo (she/he) is a queer, non-binary, and disabled Indonesian and Taiwanese American PhD candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information researching how algorithmic technologies disparately impact marginalized communities across the interlocking axes of race, gender, sexuality, and disability. Drawing from theories centered on power, transformative justice, and abolition, his current research focuses on digital faciality culture, or how digital technologies such as facial recognition technologies, deepfakes, and VTubing mediate our relationship with what we believe the face to signify, and how these technologies play a role in racial formation, trans experiences, and identity performance. Prior to his return to academia, he worked in the non-profit education equity space, where he built inclusive, accessible, and culturally responsive curriculum on artificial intelligence and social justice.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Chris Wiley is a fifth-year Information Science doctoral student and an Engineering Physical Sciences Research Data Services Librarian. His research explores the intersections of race, digital studies, and intersectionality, with a focus on Black queer and trans digital practices. He examines how marginalized communities navigate online spaces, engage in information practices, and resist platform governance. His expertise also extends to data management, curation, and sharing policies, particularly within STEM faculty and graduate student communities.

Lezismore

Shin Yang is a researcher, product strategist, and digital governance practitioner focused on autonomous community-building, ethical tech design, and digital rights advocacy. She holds an LL.M. in Interdisciplinary Studies of Law from NCCU, where she conducted empirical legal analysis on gender equality education cases.

After working in corporate legal roles, she transitioned into software product management, leading teams across the web, AI-integrated products, and open-source infrastructure. As the founder of Lezismore, a self-hosted sexual minority platform resisting surveillance capitalism, she has spent nearly a decade shaping privacy-first governance and community-driven moderation.

A sex-positive digital advocate, she recognizes censorship of sexual content as the internet’s canary in the coal mine. A 2025 DISCO Research Program Affiliate, her work explores platform censorship, content moderation, and the intersection of sex-positivity, digital rights, and governance.