Hi, I'm Joy (she/her)!

I am currently at Cornell as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Center for Applied Research on Work at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations after recently completing my PhD in Information Science. In Spring 2026, I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the new AI and Society Department at the University at Buffalo. I am recruiting PhD students for Fall 2026 who are: (1) excited about both people and technology, (2) passionate about community and social impact, and (3) experienced in resonant research methods (e.g., qualitative, systems design/development, computational/data). We're also hiring faculty to help build the department, so please apply!

My research examines the relationship between emerging technologies and worker voice. I use community-engaged methods to ensure that low-wage, frontline workers are not left behind during the introduction of new technologies — that their concerns are reflected in the design and governance of data-driven technologies and that they are empowered to organize and advocate in response to or even leveraging data and AI. I study this especially in the context of care and relational labor, focusing on home health care in Upstate New York, USA in my dissertation.

I have over a decade of experience in academia and industry designing and building technologies for social impact in diverse geographies (e.g., the United States, South/Southeast Asia, West Africa) and multiple domains (e.g., disability justice, global health, civic engagement). My research has been recognized with prestigious awards (e.g., Fulbright, NSF Graduate Fellowship), makes contributions to several disciplines (e.g., HCI, CSCW, ICTD, STS), and has real-world impact (e.g., open source technological artifacts, public-facing writing).

Recent highlights:

• I organized a panel on Reclaiming the Future of Work at the recent Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Meeting in Seattle.
• I led a workshop on Writing for Interdisciplinary Computing Audiences at the upcoming ACM COMPASS conference.
• I wrote a short op-ed to my hometown newspaper in support of the McClintock Letters, a nationwide science communication project.
• I created a live visual summary of the Cornell Global AI Thought Summit: LLMs And Society.
• Our paper Exploring Data-Driven Advocacy in Home Health Care Work won a best paper award at the CHI 2025 conference. A short public-friendly summary of the research is featured in the Cornell Chronicle.