I am an interdisciplinary researcher drawn to studying—and building—computational cultures that refuse, resist, subvert, or exceed the state and market imaginaries of technology. As a community organizer and researcher, I have worked across South Asia, the U.S. South, and now the U.S. Pacific Northwest, studying how computational technologies are used and appropriated to liberatory ends, tracing possibilities in computation for such subversion and appropriation, while co-designing tools of resistance in solidarity.
I currently work as an assistant professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington where I direct the research group Inquilab. My current projects examine the formation of—and refusal/resistance to—computational regimes shaping the realms of migration, agriculture, and labor. My work simultaneously investigates the physical and political architectures of computation itself, from data centers to the broader tech industry that underwrites them. I also serve as the Academic Director of Logic(s)—a queer Black and Asian tech magazine and digital/print platform that centers the tremendous imaginative potential of those most affected by technology but frequently excluded from the mainstream tech narratives
In a previous life, I was a software engineer at the Wikimedia Foundation building language and editing tools for Wikipedia and its related projects.