Hi!

I’m Os Keyes, a PhD Candidate at the University of Washington’s Department of Human Centred Design & Engineering, where I mostly work on myself.

Moi

When I am not working on myself, I study (very generally) gender, disability, technology and/or power. I want to understand the role technology plays in constructing the world, and how we might construct a better one. Specific research questions I’m interested in or working on include:

  1. How do facial recognition systems encode and inscribe notions of race and gender? For that matter: what notions?
  2. What role does science and biomedicine play in measuring or authenticating trans existences?
  3. What implications does artificial intelligence have for disability in general, and autism in particular?
  4. How does classification shape people? How do those people resist that shaping?

Answering these questions involves too many books and influences (and methods, and disciplines). Right now I like Medina, Hacking, Star, Plummer, Srinivasan and well…a whole host of others (I read too much). Aside from all of that, I am supported by and an inaugural winner of the Ada Lovelace Fellowship, write occasionally for Wired, Vice and a few other popular venues, and teach in Seattle University’s honours program for fun.

I can be contacted for random questions, speaking engagements and offers of high-value cheques and/or first-born children at okeyes @ uw . edu.