About

Michaelanne Thomas, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan where I direct the Anthropology & Technology Lab (ATL) research group. As a sociotechnical anthropologist, I use ethnographic methods to explore how communities at the margins collaboratively design and engage with information communication technologies (ICTs) for survival, resistance, and social change. My work investigates issues of power and privilege that are often hidden in most celebratory embraces of grassroots innovation. 

My primary fieldsite is Havana, Cuba, where I have been investigating the collaborative creation of internet ecosystems since 2014. I also have personal ties to the country. My mother was born in Cuba, but my family left in the mid 1960s. We’ve maintained close ties to communities in the country, however. My maternal grandfather began returning several times per year beginning in the 1970s. In 1995, at the height of one of Cuba’s worst economic crises in modern history, I spent two months in Cuba with my family while my father (who has no background in Cuba) conducted fieldwork for his dissertation. Two decades later, I returned to Cuba to conduct my own dissertation research, eventually bringing my child with me. 

My research has been awarded support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Microsoft Research, The Achievement Awards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation, The Elizabeth Crosby Research Awards, and the Foley Scholar Fellowship Program. My work has been published, presented, and awarded in top venues, such as ACM SIGCHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), ACM CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing), 4S (The Society for the Social Studies of Science) WWW (ACM International World Wide Web Conference), and The Conference on Cuba and Cuban American Studies. Before my professorship, I earned a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan and a Microsoft Research Doctoral Fellowship while pursuing my PhD in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech. I have an M.A. in sociocultural anthropology from Georgia State University. 

I have presented my work widely through invited talks at universities, corporate research centers (e.g. Microsoft Research and Google Headquarters), and think tanks (e.g. Data and Society). My research has been featured in The Atlantic, New Scientist, Motherboard, CNN, Reuters, and Vice, among others.