UX · Anthropology · Conversational AI
Research
- Media / Tech Anthropologist (Japan/US)
- UX Researcher Working on Conversational UX and AI.
- Founder of the University of Houston UX lab and program
- Author of “Push the Button” (about interactive television and journalism experiments in Japan).
Biography
I am a science and technology studies (STS)-focused anthropologist who is interested in conversational UX, television, emergent technology (in general), and artificial intelligence (specifically). I am also a user experience researcher (UX). My first book Push the Button: Interactive Television and Collaborative Journalism in Japan examines the post-Fukushima tensions in the Japanese journalism and television industries and seeks to account for the ways that media professionals are responding to increasingly skeptical and distracted audiences. I also track the global debut of interactive television in Japan– a cutting-edge fusion of mediums that represented the most dramatic departure from existing television technology in several decades. I was interested in examining how the concept and practice of participation change as technology evolves the means by which people can contribute.
Currently, I am working on a project at the intersection of artificial intelligence/machine learning and user experience (UX). Partnering with UX researchers and designers in companies both in the U.S. and Japan, I am exploring what it means to think about usability when we’re attempting to replicate human interaction via machine.
Education
- Ph.D., Anthropology - Rice University
- M.A., Social Sciences - University of Chicago
- M.A. Media Studies - New School University
- B.A., New Media Theory - Brown University
Research Areas
- Science and technology studies
- Engineering studies
- Applied anthropology
- Media anthropology
- UX
- Usability
- Anthropology of Work
- Television
- Journalism
- Interactivity
- Collaborative Media
- Artificial Intelligence
- Machine learning
- Creative Writing
- Japan and the United States