Anne smiling outside

Anne Jonas, PhD
Assistant Professor
College of Innovation & Technology
University of Michigan - Flint
Pronouns: she/her
Email: aejonas@umich.edu
Studying people, technology, power, & organizations

I am a qualitative researcher exploring the interrelation of digital technologies and social life, drawing on Feminist Science and Technology Studies, Critical HCI, Education, Communication, and Information Studies. My dissertation, Blank Slate: Freedom, Connection, and Accountability in U.S. Virtual Schools, supervised by Professor Jenna Burrell, uses ethnographic methods to investigate the experiences of teachers, students, and families in U.S. based online schools and the role of these institutions in a larger school choice landscape and increasingly digitized workforce structured by social inequality. I was previously a Computing Innovation Fellow working with Professor Jean Hardy at Michigan State University. Professor Hardy and I are recipients of a Spencer Foundation Large Research Grant for our project "Redesigning Virtual Schools as Networks of Care and Solidarity."

At the UC Berkeley School of Information, I designed and taught a graduate seminar, "Ethnographies of the Digital," and served as a graduate student instructor for the core masters program course "Social Issues of Information." From August 2018 - August 2020 I was the Co-Director of the Center for Technology, Society & Policy. I have been a student research awardee of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and a Research Grantee of the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity on several collaborative projects. In graduate school, I was a member of the Algorithmic Fairness and Opacity Working Group and the Biosense Initiative, and completed a Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies.

I graduated from the Chicago Public Schools and Brown University, where I studied English Literature and cultural theory with a focus on gender and sexuality. After college, I worked with GLSEN on communications and research into school safety for LGBTQ+ and GNC students, and with Parliamentarians for Global Action on a summit of leaders pursuing sustainable environmental policies. I next spent two and a half years at the Participatory Culture Foundation, first as an Americorps VISTA and then as a Program Director, focusing on partnerships with local media and educational organizations to create open-source curated community video websites. Prior to graduate school, I worked as the Program Manager at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, where I produced events and materials around social justice feminism, including co-organizing the "Action on Education" conference and acting as an interim managing editor for the Scholar & Feminist Online.

I enjoy running, hiking, learning about new places, reading, and television.

Publications