I am a PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley's School of Information. I can be reached by emailing megfinn at ischool dot berkeley dot edu. My long CV has more details about my work.
Research Projects
Dissertation research: Post-disaster information environments, 2007-present
My dissertation research examines the information and communication practices of ordinary Californians after earthquakes in 1868, 1906, and 1989. Research has included interviews and archival work in a variety of online and offline archives, including Bancroft Library, National Archives, California State Archives, Society of California Pioneers, and California Academy of Sciences. My research is supported by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant. Early versions of this work were presented at the International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management in 2007, ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition in 2007, the iConference in 2008, the UC iSchools PhD Workshop in 2009, the iConference in 2011, and at the Society for the History of Technology in 2011. My dissertation advisors are AnnaLee Saxenian and Paul Duguid.
Berkeley Sitrep Project, 2008-2009
My colleagues and I worked with the United Nations Office For Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs researching the situation reporting (sitrep) process for humanitarian emergencies. Research included in depth document analysis and over one hundred interviews, round tables and focus groups with participants in New York, Geneva and Nairobi. The first sitrep report and the first sitrep report appendix was written in 2008 after our first phase of research. The follow up report was written in 2009.
This work was presented at the 2011 4S meeting as part of a track on Disasters and STS. The work was generously supported by Tom Kalil of Big Ideas at Berkeley, and by Professors Pam Samuelson and Bob Glushko. Collaborators: Megan Finn, Elisa Oreglia, Nick Rabinowitz, John Ward.
Digital Youth Project, 2004-2006
The Digital Youth Project project aimed to produce ethnographic investigations into three emergent modes of informal learning that young people are practicing using new media technologies: communication, learning, and play. As a Graduate Student Researcher, my colleagues and I conceived of Freshquest with my masters thesis advisor, Peter Lyman. The Freshquest team investigated the technological careers of young people. We analyzed how Freshmen at Berkeley and Ohlone College use technology to support their social network using surveys, interviews and focus groups. My research contributed to the culmination of the Digital Youth project, a book called Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media by Mizuko Ito et al., published in 2009. Digital Youth was funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The Principle Investigators were: Michael Carter, Mizuko Ito, Peter Lyman, and Barrie Thorne.
This course explores the history of information and associated technologies from early writing systems to mobile text messaging, uncovering why we think of ours as "the information age." I was co-Instructor of History of Information in Summer 2009 and the Graduate Student Instructor in Spring of 2009, 2010, and 2011.