The iSchool is pleased to announce that Anita Say Chan has joined the faculty. She also holds a joint appointment with the College of Media, where she is an associate professor of communications in the Department of Media and Cinema Studies.
Her research and teaching interests include globalization and digital cultures, innovation networks and the "periphery," science and technology studies in Latin America, and hybrid pedagogies in building digital literacies. Chan's book, Networking Peripheries: Technological Futures and the Myth of Digital Universalism (MIT Press, 2014), addresses the competing imaginaries of global connection and information technologies in network-age Peru.
"The iSchool has been a vibrant space for innovative, interdisciplinary teaching and research, pushing the cutting edge of information sciences for campus and beyond," said Chan. "It is an honor to join this rich community of scholars, whose research interfaces with mine in areas such as science and technology studies, innovation and infrastructure studies, and data studies that focus on human- and community- centered work."
Chan received her PhD from MIT in the history and anthropology of science and technology studies (STS). She directs the interdisciplinary Technocultures Lab hosted at the College of Media. She holds a Fiddler Innovation Faculty Fellowship at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is a faculty affiliate with the Illinois Informatics Institute; Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory; Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; Center for Global Studies; Department of Anthropology; and Department of Asian American Studies.
"We are delighted that Anita is joining our School," said Professor and Dean Allen Renear. "Understanding innovation networks and digital culture from the perspective of globalization, and particularly understanding the uniquely significant dynamics unfolding in areas beyond the world's iconic technology centers, is profoundly important. Anita, a leader on campus, brings this critical perspective to our School."