My research program and the THiCC Lab
I’ve watched as some colleagues of mine have done a good job communicating their research and teaching interests in various online format. I certainly see the value in finding ways to communicate not only what you do, but your vision — Where do you want to go? What type of paths do you want to lay out for those having an opportunity to contribute within your lab?
I am starting at Penn State in the Spring of 2022 as an Harold and Inge Marcus Industrial and Manufacturing Career Development Associate Professor (a long title, I know, but flaunt it while you got it) with a joint position in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (Human Factors) and Computer Science and Engineering (Data Science). The name I have chosen for my lab is The Human in Computing and Cognition (THiCC) Lab; I wanted a name that signaled the goal of understanding computing and cognition in the context of sociocultural knowledge and processes that provide a particular definition for what it means to be a part of humanity. (Also…THiCC…)
My own personal research will use Blackness and antiblackness as a foundation for this goal of understanding, but I wanted to leave space for dimensions that intersect with Blackness, but nonetheless help us to define the space of humanity through the Human. As I will be moving on to recruit grad students and potentially postdocs (in addition to undergrads, in a way similar to those that I have recruited and worked with in my capacity as an Associate Professor at Bucknell University), I think it’s useful for those who are considering coming to work with me to have an idea of my vision and how I think about the work I do and want to do in the future. Having thought about this more than a few times, I’ve considered how I can talk about my vision in a simple way that also allows me to bring some of my own context.
Receipts
As odd as it may seem, in thinking about my research program, where I want it to go, where some of my saved research project ideas and questions have gone, it seems to come back to the idea of receipts. Particularly this concept in the context of thinking through the Human and the Social (within computing and behaving with computing).
What does “receipts” mean?
Receipts can be thought of here as evidence, but evidence in the face of power structures. (And, of course, action in light of that evidence is also important.)
How does the concept of receipts connect to my work and vision?
Well, I want to create a space that allows us to connect sociocultural structures to our interactions with computing systems partially with the help of receipts. This is centered on Collecting, Communicating, and (ultimately) working to change those problematic knowledge structures and processes that help propagate those power structures. Again, my focus is all of this in the context of antiblackness, though students of mine might focus on other structures or the intersections thereof.
Collect those receipts
Here we will work to collect these receipts. Not only by collecting evidence (e.g., collecting data used by computing/AI systems), but also by elucidating design and function of existing computing systems, and by understanding cognitive processing in the context of these computing/AI systems. How is our current definition of the Human built-in to our systems? (Think beyond just AI & Computing Systems, to also Critical Black Studies, Human Factors, and Computational Cognitive Science.)
How is our current definition of the Human built-in to our systems?
Communicate those receipts
Once we have collected those receipts, how will we communicate them? What will be the best methods for various audiences and stakeholders, how should we design technological systems to hold those power structures (and those operating within those power structures) to task? Let’s find out together.
Change based on those receipts (Engineering, Computing, and People)
Given what we know and have learned, how can we change? How can we re-imagine the systems, the processes? Can Computing and Engineering be used to help adapt? Where will it be a hindrance because of the dominant modes of thought and action that are used within Engineering and Computer Science? How can we particularly positively affect traditionally marginalized communities?
Thinking about adaptation outside of the Human
One important part of all of this is understanding how people in those same communities, despite these systems that produce outcomes such as those that are anti-Black, go on and interact with the world, the technologies, around them. In engineering computing systems we must seek to understand the culture within those communities and how this culture is contextualized to existing marginalization, how adaptation has occurred to this context of the Human, the Social, and Computing/Technological systems. I want to leave space to celebrate, and be optimistic about whats been accomplished despite being in (among other things) a world filled with antiblackness. I suppose you might say that I’m not a complete afropessimist!
I want to leave space to celebrate, and be optimistic about whats been accomplished despite being in…a world filled with antiblackness.
In the end (Conclusion)
I do not know where this will lead, as is a reasonable when conducting research (and part of what makes it exciting). I hope that this gives opportunities not only for justice, but opportunities re-imagine, opportunities to celebrate innovation outside of the standard, and more opportunities to mesh engineering and computer science with the context of the Human and the Social.
If those coming out of my lab with a strong ability (1) to see the sociotechnical systems around us, steeped and defined by historical and ongoing social-power structures, and (2) to use that ability as an opportunity to re-imagine and re-engineer systems in way that pushes against systems that enable white supremacy and antiblackness, then I think the lab will have been a success.
