Ph.D., Sociology, 2007, University of California at Berkeley

M.A., Sociology, 2001, University of California at Berkeley

B.A. cum laude, Social Studies, 1992, Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges

B.A. cum laude, Women's Studies, 1992, Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges

Senior Honors Essay: Negotiating Identity: Multiracial People Challenge the Discourse

RESEARCH

Research Interests

sociology of communication and information technologies, sociology of culture, sociology of work, technology and society, social stratification, identity

Dissertation: Living Like Me: Lifestyle, Social Stratification and Technology

Sociologists claim that people’s lifestyles – their consumption and leisure activities – are replacing traditional anchors of identity, namely social class, in contemporary Western societies. Yet lifestyle research has traditionally addressed only a part of people’s lives, namely their artistic and aesthetic-related practices. My research pushes the boundaries of lifestyle research to show its relevance to an arena of life that is less artistic and less aesthetic: information and communication technologies (ICTs).Using factor analysis and standard linear regression analysis on a large data set representative of the U.S. and Canada, I analyze four major lifestyle dimensions: socially active, career-minded, trend-conscious and fun-focused. People’s lifestyles, even when controlling for their social background characteristics such as education, income, gender or age, shape their use of computers, the Internet, mobile telephones and email, in statistically significant and sociologically meaningful ways. Moreover, people’s lifestyles better explain their online activities than do their social backgrounds, which instead better explain adoption practices, such as computer ownership. This research contributes to sociological work by recognizing non-aesthetic consumption and leisure practices, supplementing traditional social background–particularly class–analyses, and broadening understandings of ICTs beyond the digital divide debate.

Dissertation Committee: Professor Claude S. Fischer (Chair); Professor Neil Fligstein; Professor Peter Lyman (School of Information, University of California, Berkeley; and Professor Christena Nippert-Eng (Illinois Institute of Technology).

New Media & Skill: Web Site Design

In my Master's Thesis (see Publications), I investigated the evolution of web design skill in the new media industry. Using ethnographic fieldwork and classified advertisements, I traced how both employers and employees defined skill in a rapidly changing technological environment, arguing that "keeping up" is a primary way that flexible workers reinvent their skills.

Mobile Phones & the Cultural Worlds of Young People

Mobile Phones/SMS/Instant Messaging Bibliography - updated 7 january 2007

Visiting Scholar, INCITE (Incubator for Critical Inquiry into Technology & Ethnography), University of Surrey, United Kingdom (2001-2) Funded by the Annenberg Center for Communication, Professor Nina Wakeford (University of Surrey) and I conducted a year-long comparative ethnography in the United States and in the United Kingdom of young people's use of and attitudes towards their mobile phones in their cultural worlds.

Graduate Student Instructor, "Sociology of the Family," Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Professor Arlie Hochschild (Spring 2004).

Graduate Student Instructor, "Introduction to Sociology," Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Professor Raka Ray (Spring 2001).