Will Sutherland

I am a postdoc at the eScience Institute at the University of Washington. I study growth and change in information infrastructures, particularly in the sciences. My recent work has examined how research labs reorganize around new demands for robust pipeline development work, as well as new deliberative processes that are emerging around large-scale automated data collection efforts. I have also worked on understanding changing work practices around digital labor platforms in the gig economy, and how people work with, against, and around automated systems.

My work favors depth-wise qualitative and ethnographic methods, broadly inspired by pragmatic interactionist sociology and social informatics. My field work has spanned hackathons and workshops for scientists to research labs to large astronomical survey projects. Across these engagements I try to build better dialogues between the social sciences, natural sciences, and spheres of technology development. I have published in journals and conferences such as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work; Work, Employment and Society; and the iConference.

If you want to get a better sense of my work, you can see a very brief version of a paper presentation I gave at Computer-Supported Cooperative Work.

Also, check out my friends:

• Bogeum Choi
• Andrew Neang
• Keri Mallari
• Spencer Williams