Our Research Team
Project Leads
Dr. Marcel O'Gorman
PROJECT DIRECTOR
Professor Marcel O’Gorman is a University Research Chair and Founding Director of the Critical Media Lab (CML). The CML supports the design and development of research and creative projects that explore the impacts of technology on society and the more than human world. O’Gorman has published widely about tech issues in both academic and public contexts, including articles and op-eds in The Atlantic, Slate, The Globe and Mail, and The Conversation. He is also a practicing artist with an international portfolio of exhibitions and performances.
Email: marcel@uwaterloo.ca
University of Waterloo Profile: Dr. Marcel O’Gorman
Dr. Heather A. Love
FACULTY RESEARCHER
Heather A. Love is an assistant professor of English at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada), where she conducts interdisciplinary research and teaches courses on topics related to literature, culture, technology, health, and engineering. Her first monograph, “Cybernetic Aesthetics: Modernist Networks of Information and Data” (forthcoming from Cambridge UP) traces a cultural pre-history to the technological field of mid- to late-twentieth-century cybernetics in the experimental work of modernist authors such as Ezra Pound, John Dos Passos, Virginia Woolf, and Gertrude Stein. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Modernism/modernity, the Journal of Modern Literature, the Johns Hopkins Guide to Cultural and Critical Theory and IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, for which she currently serves as Editor-in-Chief. Heather is an elected Member-at-Large on the Board of Governors for the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT).
Email: heather.love@uwaterloo.ca
University of Waterloo Profile: Dr. Heather A. Love
Dr. Jennifer Boger
FACULTY RESEARCHER
Jennifer Boger is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Waterloo, Adjunct Professor at UBC (Okanagan), and a Research Scientist at the Research institute for Aging. She has been a lead researcher on more than 40 transdisciplinary projects that apply state-of-the-art computer science, engineering, and rehabilitation science resulting in more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Boger is internationally renowned for the human-centric development of cutting-edge technology for supporting aging, quality of life, and wellbeing, including formal research in collaborative technology development. She is spearheading the concept of ‘Ethical by Design’, which involves the systematic design of a methodology to enable disparate stakeholders to collaboratively build aspects such ethics, culture, and citizenship into products and systems throughout their lifecycle.
Email: jboger@uwaterloo.ca
Profile: Dr. Jennifer Boger
Dr. Katina Michael
FACULTY RESEARCHER
Katina Michael is a professor at Arizona State University, a Senior Global Futures Scientist in the Global Futures Laboratory and has a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. She is the director of the Society Policy Engineering Collective (SPEC) and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society. Katina is a senior member of the IEEE and the founding chair of the inaugural Masters of Science in Public Interest Technology. She has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Australian Research Council (ARC). Prior to academia, Katina was employed by Nortel Networks, Anderson Consulting and OTIS Elevator Company.
Email: katina.michael@asu.edu
Profile: Dr. Katina Michael
Dr. Daniela Rosner
FACULTY RESEARCHER
Daniela K. Rosner is an Associate Professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington and co-director of the Tactile and Tactical Design (TAT) Lab. Her research investigates the social, political, and material circumstances of technology development and use. Rosner’s work has appeared in Public Culture, New Media & Society, Design Issues, and other journals, conference proceedings, and edited volumes. She is the author of Critical Fabulations: Reworking the Methods and Margins of Design (MIT Press). Rosner serves as an Editor-in-Chief of Interactions magazine, a bimonthly publication of ACM SIGCHI. For this project, Dr. Rosner will consult on critical design methods deployed in the workshops by supporting collaborative work between her students and students in Critical Design at Waterloo. She will also introduce the workshops to engineers at U of Washington, scaffolding critical pedagogy and hybrid learning around technology development.
Email: dkrosner@uw.edu
Profile: Dr. Daniela Rosner
Dr. Carter Neal
Faculty Researcher
Carter Neal is a Continuing Lecturer in English at the University of Waterloo, where he delivers courses in English and communications courses in the Faculties of Science and Engineering. Since 2018, his first-year communications courses for students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering have situated engineering communication within concrete rhetorical and ethical contexts and have asked students to perform as engineering communicators while learning about the rhetorical processes involved in their chosen field. For this project, Dr. Neal will refine his pedagogical integration of critical design methods as he implements curricular materials, critical design workshops and assignments into his courses, and develops other student-facing pedagogical interventions.
Email: carter.neal@uwaterloo.ca
Profile: Dr. Carter Neal
Research Assistants
Alexi Orchard
Alexi Orchard is a PhD candidate in English Language & Literature at the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on engineering ethics education and cross-disciplinary, sociotechnical pedagogical methods, including critical design, as a means to enhance technologists’ abilities to recognize, mitigate, and reflect on complex ethical issues in their work. She also manages the Critical Media Lab, a research-creation initiative dedicated to exploring the impact of technology on society and promoting responsible innovation.
Email: alexi.orchard@uwaterloo.ca
Rebecca Sherlock
Rebecca Sherlock is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo and a Design Director in the technology sector. Her research explores the intersection of responsible innovation, critical design, and ethical technology design, with special interest in how these topics are realized within industry. As a member of the University of Waterloo’s Critical Media Lab (CML), she engages in research to understand how responsible innovation might be integrated directly into technological design practices.
Email: rebecca.sherlock@uwaterloo.ca
Aleksander Franiczek
Aleksander Franiczek is an English PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo. His research synthesizes perspectives from game studies, phenomenology, and critical design to consider how a player’s sense of immersion in a digital game can provide a means towards self-reflection through creative engagement both during and outside gameplay. This has also led him to explore how games’ reflective potential can be leveraged to engage players in ethics-related issues surrounding the tech and games industries by designing narrative-driven games representing these matters. Through his involvement with the Critical By Design team, Aleks hopes to continue this and other related work that will contribute to the dissemination of ethical approaches to tech innovation.
Email: afraniczek@uwaterloo.ca
Sarah Margaret Casey
Sarah is an English PhD student at the University of Waterloo, with over fifteen years experience as a communications professional in the health, wellness and fitness industry. Her research project, Alternative Risk, focuses on the rhetoric of risk and disinformation, engaging with the study of risk across disciplines (sociology, anthropology, political and management sciences) to understand how risk discourse contributes to social and political polarization. Through her work with the Critical by Design team, Sarah is interested in understanding how responsible innovation and critical design methods can intervene in existing risk talk within the tech sector in ways that help reorient technological progress in a more socially productive direction.
Email: smcasey@uwaterloo.ca
Wanyun Xue
Wanyun Xue is an undergraduate student in Systems Design Engineering with an option in Society, Technology, and Values at the University of Waterloo. Wanyun’s academic journey is shaped by her interest in the intersections of psychology, law, and technoculture. Her current endeavors focus on the relationships between design, technology, colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism through a critical pluriversal lens. Through her participation in the Critical Media Lab, Wanyun seeks to deepen her exploration of these themes, advocating for better design practices, responsible innovation, and ethical considerations in technology development..
Mariana Ostrovska
Mariana Ostrovska is a visiting research student from Ukraine at the University of Waterloo, assisting at the Critical Media Lab. She is also a former philology student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, with a deep appreciation for language, literature, and cultural nuances. Her work includes leading digital media projects, such as creating an interactive multimedia presentation about Ukraine during youth international projects in Berlin and Budapest, and managing social media content for Uthentic Fest in Scotland. Previously, Mariana conducted a research project on “Bilingualism and Linguistic Identity of Ukrainians in Canada.” Her current research focuses on tech ethics, critical design, and responsible innovation. Through her engagement with digital media and social platforms, Mariana bridges traditional academia with contemporary digital innovations, advocating for inclusivity and understanding. She aims to integrate the principles of critical design and responsible innovation into her work, contributing to the evolving landscape of technology and humanities.
Email: m2ostrov@uwaterloo.ca
Past Team Members
Shannon Lodoen is an English doctoral candidate at the University of Waterloo whose research interests lie at the intersection of rhetoric, media theory, and Frankfurt School critical theory. Her SSHRC-funded dissertation examines how smartphones are reshaping users’ subjectivity through their constant, customizable, and captivating presence in everyday life. Shannon is especially interested in understanding how smartphones and other technological devices are designed to be (and are) used in ways that are antithetical to users’ health, happiness, and freedom. Through her own research and her participation on the Critical by Design team, she hopes to highlight the importance of tech ethics and responsible innovation practices that prioritize people’s wellbeing and safety over potential profit or progress for the sake of progress alone.