I am a historian of technology, gender, and modern Europe (focusing on Britain). I study how connections between national prestige, labor, and productivity define collective understandings of technological progress, and how that relates to social progress. I am particularly interested in the global history of computing.
My current book project looks at why the proportion of women computer operators and programmers declined as electronic computing matured in the UK, and how this labor situation had grave effects on the technological aspirations of that waning postwar superpower.
I am currently an assistant professor at Illinois Institute of Technology. I've also taught at Duke University, where I earned my Ph.D. and M.A. in history and a certificate in women's studies, and at North Carolina State University.
Send me some email, follow me on twitter, read my blog, or listen to the 10-minute version of what I work on in this NPR interview.
Interested in taking my courses? For Spring and Fall 2013, I'll be offering a variety of History and STS classes, including my History of Computing Course, a course on Gender and Technological Change, a new STS course, and a course I designed last year called Disasters! (which looks at how technological disasters throughout history have created regulatory and legislative change). Take a look at the syllabi page for more info.