Description: Samuel So PhD student website
I am seeking research opportunities for summer 2024! I would love to either continue my work on tech workers and their post-layoff subjectivities, or contribute to any critical data/sociotechnical infrastructural work. Please reach out if you have any leads ☻
I'm a third year PhD student in Human-Centered Design and Engineering at University of Washington , and I am co-advised by Drs. Sean Munson and Sucheta Ghoshal . Broadly, my research examines relationalities and identities as mediated by- and enacted through- algorithmic, data-driven systems. Drawing from critical and STS perspectives on technology practice and production, I investigate the values, beliefs, and meanings that underlie these sociotechnical systems.
Currently, I am working on a NSF-funded project on the 2022-2023 tech layoffs, researching the sociotechnical imaginaries of tech workers in the aftermath of the layoffs. Through surveys, interviews, and participatory methods, I am researching how tech workers are making sense of the layoff decisions, and their subsequent questioning of beliefs around tech work and the tech industry at-large.