Dr. Megha Anwer

Associate Dean for Research and Clinical Associate Professor

Field of expertise: visual culture with a focus on film and photography; race, gender, caste, and class in representation; feminist studies; urban studies; anti-racist and inclusive pedagogies.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on their projects? Yes. Please reach out to this faculty member directly for possibilities regarding the Visual Culture Research Group.

Dr. Jennifer Bay

Associate Professor of English & Director of Professional Writing

Field of expertise: Community Engagement; Technical and Professional Communication; Feminist Theory; Digital Rhetorics

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Melissa Chomintra

Assistant Professor of Libraries and School of Information Studies

Field of expertise: critical cartography & spatial justice; feminist theory; critical information literacy; criminal justice data ethics

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Andrew Flachs

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Field of expertise: anthropology, political ecology, agriculture, diverse economies

Lead of TJL projects on: big data and agriculture, environmental decision-making, intersections of capitalism and agrarian change, local food and farming systems in the US, South Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes.

Dr. Muiris MacGiollabhuí

Clinical Assistant Professor

Field of expertise: Atlantic History, Irish History, Migration History, Diaspora Studies

Lead of TJL projects on: Projects at the intersection of migration and technology, i.e.: histories of borders and biometrics; colonial fingerprinting; branding and the Atlantic slave trade

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes.

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Bethany S McGowan

Associate Professor of Libraries and School of Information Studies

Field of expertise: Health Information Literacy; Information Literacy; Information Access; Information-Seeking Behavior; Civic Engagement and Diplomacy

Lead of TJL projects on: General or Community-Specific Strategies for Improving Information-Seeking Behavior; Strategies for Combatting the Spread of Mis/Dis/Malinformation, including policymaking, civic engagement, and/or technology design; Information Access as a Human Right/Civil Right; Sustainable Technology Design for Closing the Digital Divide/Improving Information Access

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes.

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Anastasia Kouvaras Ostrowski

Assistant Professor of Computer Graphics Technology

Field of expertise: equitable design, design research, human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, technology policy design, technology design + implementation.

Lead of TJL projects on: employee-driven technology implementation + policy design, qualitative design methods theory development, design in human-robot interaction, community-based virtual reality co-design.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Possibly

Dr. Kali Rubaii

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Field of expertise: anthropology; forensic ethnography; environmental health justice; displacement; toxicity and spatial politics; cement and concrete; supply chains; Middle East.

Lead of TJL projects on: multi-generational health effects of environmental exposures from the war industry; how internally displaced farmers travel to and from their land during episodes of military violence; the militarized logics that propel the cement and concrete industry in Iraq.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes, beginning spring 2025

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Daniel Schiff

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Field of expertise: AI policy and governance; social and ethical implications of technology; social policy

Lead of TJL projects on: via Governance and Responsible AI Lab (GRAIL), tracking deepfakes and identifying impacts of policy solutions; AI attitudes survey research; AI GOvernance and Regulatory Archive (AGORA); police accountability and reform practices.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? No

Dr. Anish Vanaik

Clinical Associate Professor & Director of International Student Engagement

Field of expertise: Climate Crisis; History; Social Movements; political cartoons; colonialism; Marxism; South Asia.

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes. He’s particularly happy to mentor projects from students interested in how technological solutions to the climate crisis interact with social, political and ethical questions.

Dr. Lindsay Weinberg

Director of the Tech Justice Lab & Clinical Associate Professor

Field of expertise: science and technology studies; media studies; feminist studies

Lead of TJL projects on: data analytics in higher education; fairness in AI/ML

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Rua M. Williams

Assistant Professor of Computer Graphics Technology

Field of expertise: Human-Computer Interaction; Human Factors; User Experience Design; Critical Disability Studies; Science and Technology Studies

Lead of TJL projects on: adaptive technology rights and policy; "counterventions" in HCI (contesting interventionist and clinical domination in computing research); ethical consciousness in STEM researchers

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Possibly

Dr. Courtney T. Wittekind

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Field of expertise: Cultural and media anthropology, media studies, social media and platform technologies, digital activism

Lead of TJL projects on: “Profit, violence, and platform politics in Myanmar’s Spring Revolution:” a digital ethnography that explores social media fundraising in support of Myanmar’s revolutionary struggle; “The scam as vernacular analytic of digital capitalism:” a collaborative project exploring scams and scamming through digital technologies.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes. Please reach out directly for up-to-date opportunities.

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes.

Dr. Hanshen Xiao

Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Field of expertise: provable trustworthy machine learning with a focus on both the theoretical foundation and algorithmic design; automated black-box privacy analysis; robust statistics

Lead of TJL projects on: instance-adaptive privacy-preserving machine learning.

Currently accepting undergraduate student researchers on these projects? Yes

Currently able to mentor TJL students on independent projects related to their expertise? Yes

Dani Parsons, M.S.

Honors Advisor

Dani's educational background is in social psychology, with a focus on small group interactions and group decision making research. Both their bachelor's and master's degrees are from Purdue, but they proudly distinguish that their bachelor's comes from the campus in their hometown, Fort Wayne. Go Dons! As an advisor, Dani brings a holistic approach and strives to make all students feel welcome in their office. With 6 years of advising experience, Dani hopes to help their students become their best selves

Co-Lead with Dr. Weinberg of TJL Projects on: coded bias in hiring and talent acquisition practices using resume evaluating algorithms, with a focus on hiring discrimination towards transgender and gender-non-conforming people.