PRESENT PROJECTS
Algorithms and “elderqueers”: An exploration of intergenerational exchanges about sexual identity on TikTok
This project involves an exploration of older LGBTQ TikTokers and intergenerational exchanges. Its objectives include: 1) Understanding how LGBTQ individuals over thirty use the platform; 2) Examining how the platform’s technical interface, governance structure, and business model shape the content and experiences of these “elder” TikTokers; and 3) Analyzing the messages shared to young LGBTQ individuals and the responses they garner.
dating apps in canadian context: examining digital harms, intimate intrusions and equitable relationship-building through mobile technologies
This project examines how are dating apps, such as Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid, designed, envisioned by stakeholders, and experienced by Canadians to understand how they feature in equitable uses–those fostering positive outcomes across diverse users–and how to address and prevent their use for inequitable, violent ends.
Pills, clicks, and bans: Auditing digital censorship of access to abortion and reproductive rights
Through a collaboration between the DIGS Lab and Concordia’s Applied AI Institute, this research initiative will map how major information intermediaries — search engines, social media platforms and hosting services — restrict access to WoW’s website and services.
Safety, wellbeing, and intimacy: Exploring the opportunities and risks of dating apps' AI features through participatory workshops
Grounded in an exploratory, inquiry-based approach, this project will harness the lived experiences of dating app users with marginalized identities (i.e., LGBTQ+, BIPOC, neurodivergent) to investigate the opportunities and risks of emerging AI features, especially in terms of safety and wellbeing.
Queering Algorithmic Governance: An Inquiry into Automation and Its Social Implications for Canada’s LGBTQ+ Communities
This research leverages the expertise of key LGBTQ+ stakeholders (community representatives, developers, researchers, and policymakers) to identify and analyze the implications that platform algorithms raise for Canada’s LGBTQ+ communities, especially in terms of social justice and equity. By doing so, we seek to further highlight how digital technologies are never neutral but encoded with values that enact important power dynamics disproportionally affecting marginalized communities