I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information where I run the Anthropology and Technology Lab (ATL). As a sociocultural anthropologist I use ethnographic methods to study how marginalized communities collaboratively design, access, and participate with information communication technologies (ICTs) in politically and resource-constrained contexts. I am specifically interested in the ways people rely on social relationships to confront issues of power, resistance, and agency informed by the fields of Anthropology, CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work), ICTD (Information Communication Technologies & Development), and Feminist STS (Science and Technology Studies).
Specifically, I study: (1) internet access in resource-constrained regions; (2) the design of citizen-led information systems; and (3) social media use for social change.
RECENT NEWS
[Aug 2025] My article, “Relational Infrastructures of Survival: How Social Dependencies Enable Alternative Internets in Cuba,” was published in the Cuban Studies journal.
[Aug 2025] Dr. Ben Zhang, co-advised by me and Dr. Oliver Haimson, successfully defended his dissertation, “Infrastructuring Data Values: An Ethnography of AI Production, Labor, and Data Marketplaces in the Chinese Datafied State.”
[April 2025] Our co-authored article, “The Making of Performative Accuracy in AI Training: Precision Labor and Its Consequences,” led by Ben Zefeng Zhang, along with Tianling Yang, Milagros Miceli, and Oliver Haimson, was published at CHI 2025.
[Nov 2024] I presented the paper, “Embracing Interdependence to Address Climate Migration,” at the HCI, Mobility Justice, and Migration in the Face of Climate Crisis workshop during CSCW 2024.
[Oct 2024] Our co-authored article, “Historical Friction: Pacing Ourselves in HCI,” appeared in ACM Interactions.
[June 2024] The paper, “Trans-centered moderation: Trans technology creators and centering transness in platform and community governance,” co-authored by myself, Samuel Mayworm, Oliver Haimson, and led by Hibby Thach was presented at ACM FAccT.
[May 2024] I presented a talk, “Community as Connectivity: The relationality of digital ecosystems in contexts of precarity,” at the University of Washington’s Change Seminar.
[April 2024] I was awarded the SUCCEED Faculty Grant by University of Michigan’s ADVANCE Program for my proposal, “Interwoven Infrastructures: The Role of Family in Cultivating Digital Spaces in Havana.”
[April 2024] I was invited as a speaker at the University of Virginia’s Department of Media Studies and the Latin American Studies Program, where I presented a talk titled “Social Webs and Digital Threads: How relational dependencies enable Cuban internet ecosystems.”
[Feb 2024] My article, “Evaluating Interpretive Research in HCI,” with Robert Soden and Austin Toombs was published in ACM Interactions.
[Feb 2024] I was featured in an article by The University Record where I talked about my love for tiny things and building a space for curiosity and play at home.
[Nov 2023] I presented my paper, “Reimagining Ethnography in HCI: A relational approach” at the Annual Meeting for the Society of the Social Studies of Science (4S).
View archived news items here.
Michaelanne Thomas, PhD 