Who

Occupy Research is an open, distributed research project that anyone can participate in. Here, anyone who wants to is free to describe who you are, your research interests, methods, and skills, and what you are interested in doing w/Occupy Research. Also put contact info if you'd like; be aware that this page is publicly available.

• Shannon Arvizu, Ph.D., sociologist of social movements, digital media activism, and youth culture. We are preparing an E-Book with contributions from researchers, journalists, videographers, and photographers called "Occupy Wall St: The First 90 Days." The idea is to tell a thematic story of where the movement has been and where it is going through an informed perspective. We just started a network site: occupyknowledgeproject.ning.com Would love to have the Occupy Research participants join. We are putting together a list of chapters at the moment and are looking for contributors. Email me at shannon(at)generatione.org. Looking forward to rockin the Occupy Research site with you all!
• Jonathan Baldwin, MFA Design + Technology Dept., Parsons, the New School for Design. Studying the use of experimental and novel communication technologies, such as mesh networking, at Occupy Wall Street and other Occupation sites – specifically, how technology augments participation, communication and interaction between the online and offline Occupy spaces. Contact: @jrbaldwinn
• Dalida María Benfield is a digital media artist, scholar and activist. Currently a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
• Greta Byrum, urban planner and policy analyst, Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, Washington DC. Communication is a fundamental human right and the most powerful tool for change. Interested in researching how movements and demonstrations use communications technology, and how using technology affects the way movements develop. Also interested in collaborative design processes for both communications infrastructure and sustainable occupations (and cities!). byrum@newamerica.net
• Hector R. Cordero-Guzman, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College of the City University of New York and the Ph.D. Programs in Sociology and Urban Education at CUNY. Interested in a range of projects. Working now on understanding the characteristics of persons interested in, supporting, involved, and participating in OWS. Contact: hcordero@aol.com
• Sasha Costanza-Chock, Assistant Professor of Civic Media, MIT. Interested especially in movement mediamaking tools and practices. Willing to help coordinate, participate in research workshops at OccupyBoston, work w/developers and designers on codesign of new tools. Contact @schock.
• Grace Davie, Associate Professor of History, Queens College-CUNY. My forthcoming book is on poverty, racial inequality, and the production and radicalization of social science expertise in South Africa. I'm not planning any research directly related to OWS, but I would like to help facilitate calloboration among scholars and community leaders, especially in the NYC area, around the issues of equity, dignity, and democracy raised by OWS. Contact grace.davie@qc.cuny.edu
• DeMarquis: Until just recently I was a faculty member at the Business School at Wayne State University in Detroit. I was just laid off a couple of months ago. But I now have more free time, and I still possess all my research skills! I am experienced in all social research methodologies, my area of interest has been employee experiences in the workplace. I have a small publication record you can find by Googling "Victor Wooddell". I am a member of the "Occupy Ferndale" group. You can also find me under my avatar at the "Occupy Together" forum.
• Anna Feigenbaum, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, Richmond University. Engaged in a collaborative research project on protest camps. Interested in affect, emotion and social movements, autonomous politics and media ecologies of protest. Participating in Occupy London. Contact: @protestcamps anna.feigenbaum@richmond.ac.uk
• Martha Fuentes-Bautista, Assistant Professor of Communication and Public Policy at UMass Amherst. Interested in participation, communication flows, global/local dynamics in the OWS, and role of alternative and community media in current events. Recent work looks at community media policy, Internet governance, and the populist movements in Venezuela and Brazil. Contact mfuentes@comm.umass.edu
• Adam Green from 140 Elect, LLC. We gather and analyze tweets for the 2012 election, and recently started a project to collect all tweets containing #ows, #occupy, and #occupywallstreet. This database is available through a browsing interface at http://ows.140elect.com/tweet_stats.php. We can share these tweets or a filtered subset with anyone who wants them for their research. Contact 140dev at gmail.com.
• Zoltán Glück, PhD student in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center. Interested broadly in the social dynamics capitalist crises. Involved with organizing the Student Assembly in NYC and hope to see an expansion of OWS into a student movement. Contact: zgluck@gc.cuny.edu.
• Margaret Hanzimanolis, PhD, University of Cape Town, South Africa (women and empire in exploration discourse). Currently teaching writing at De Anza College and Canada College in Bay area of California. Interested in contingent faculty issues, economic literacy in higher education curriculum, sustainable community initiatives.
• Jeffrey S. Juris, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University (Boston). Interested in globalization, social movements, and new media. Previous research on global justice movement in Barcelona and free radio movement in Mexico. Interested in use of new media, "assembleist" practices, and autonomous spaces in the #Occupy movements. Contact: j.juris@neu.edu
• Karina Klimtchuk, studied Psychoanalysis and Culture at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. Interested in unconscious motivation and meaning of socio-political phenomena on an individual and societal basis.
• Yvonne Yen Liu, Applied Research Center, Colorlines.com, Oakland, CA, (@yvonnegraphy). Colorlines.com: online magazine about race and politics, based in Oakland. Interested in two research questions - what is role of race/class/gender in occupy movement, nationally as well as globally; how can we chart the progress of the movement and how does it institutionalize itself, relationship to elders and movement halfway homes (Aldon Morris) from other movements. Contact: yliu at arc.org.
• míchel angela martinez, Ph.D student studying Law+Human Rights+Visual Culture at USC (Los Angeles). Camped out w/ Oc*LA since day one as participant & National Lawyers Guild Observer (& liaison). Activist first, researcher second. Photographer & direct action trainer with legal background and political polling skills/experience. Contact: mamartin at usc.edu
• Alice Mattoni, Post-doctoral Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh. I did research on 1) activist media practices (towards different categories of media organizations, outlets and technologies: from mainstream to alternative/independent; from the print press to social media platforms) during different stages of mobilization; 2) precarious, temporary and vulnerable workers movements (especially in Europe). Interested in the creation of spaces and places of struggle across different mediated and non-mediated environments during the occupywallstreet protests. Precariously participating in the OccupyPittsburgh camp and protests.Contact alm232 at pitt dot edu.
• Pablo Rey Mazón, Visiting Scientist at Civic Media, MIT. Studying how main stream media and twitter cover the occupy movement. Trying to understand and create links between the #15M movement in Spain (the so called Spanish Revolution) and #occupy to provide useful tools. Contact @numeroteca
• Patrick McCurdy, Assistant Professor, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. I have previous research studying social movements and the media strategies of activists. I am interested in how activism is undertaken with, in and through a media saturated environment. I am currently working with Anna Feigenbaum (see above) and Fabian Frenzel on a project on Protest Camps. Contact: pmccurdy@uottawa.ca or Twitter: pmmcc
• Stefania Milan, post-doc fellow at The Citizen Lab, University of Toronto. Earlier research on social movements and technologies/comm practices; currently engaged in www.protestsurvey.eu. Interested in media practices, changing media ecologies, the roles of social media, surveillance and repression; and micro-sociological questions like identity building and the role of individuals within groups dynamics. Contact stefania.milan at eui.eu.
• Carolina Novella C., PhD student in Performance Studies at UCDavis. Interested in embodied participation and social change. Conducted participatory research on the #15M movement in Barcelona in June. Creating a performance-action-research to generate cross-cultural understanding and critical reflection Contact: cnovella@ucdavis.edu
• OccupyWikipedia, Occupation. Encouraging online documentation of regional occupations through Wikipedia.org.
• Michelle Ronayne, Associate Professor, Psychology/Sociology, Nashua Community College. Interested in power structures and the ability to change without top-down processing. Interested in researching community action and using qualitative methods. mronayne@ccsnh.edu
• Dan Ryan, Professor in Sociology, Mills College, Oakland, CA. Sociology of information, modeling, GIS, organizations.
• Catherine Seo, Professor Business, Management & Technology, Cambridge College & Northeastern University, Boston. Ph.D. student at Fielding Graduate University in Media Psychology Program. Interested in the evolutionary nature of survival mechanism through social engagement with social media as a tool. catherine.seo (at) gmail (dot) com and cseo (at) email (dot) fielding (dot) edu.
• Peter (Jay) Smith, Professor of Political Science, Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada. Like Jeff Juris I am interested in globalization, social movements and the new media. First conducted research on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in 1999 and have participated in and conducted research on the Social Forum including the World Social Forum and various regional and local social forums. In particular I am interested in the broader cultural formation and context of the Occupy movements and to what extent they are connected to previous protests and movement activity including the USSF. Plus much more. Contact jayathabasca@hotmail.com or jays@athabascau.ca
• Merlyna Lim, Assistant Professor, Arizona State University. I am interested in the politics of new media, especially in relations with globalization & social movements/activisms. I have previous and current research studying activisms and new media in Southeast Asia (Indonesia) and Middle East (e.g. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt). I'm particularly interested in the transnational flows&connections of ideas/ideologies/narratives. Contact: merlyna.lim@asu.edu.
• Harrison Schultz, PhD student in sociology at the New School for Social Research completing a dissertation on the sociology of deviant behavior. General co-organizer with occupywallst.org. Full-time business intelligence analyst for a digital marketing company.
• Felicia M. Sullivan, PhD candiate in Public Policy at University of Massachusetts Boston. Previous life was as a community media and tech educator / activist. I'm currently interested in looking at concepts of self-organization and political engagement. Also looking at sociopolitical development in young people and pathways for supporting social change.. Contact felicia.sullivan@umb.edu or http://www.feliciasullivan.net/?page_id=4
• Firuzeh Shokooh Valle, PhD student Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA. Research interests: social movements, digital media, technology and culture, digital activism, state/society relations, Latin America and the Caribbean, gender. firuzehsv@gmail.com
• Mark Tracy, Adjunct Anthropology Instructor, Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Metropolitan State University and University of Wisconsin-Stout. Contact: @anthropology_mn
• Bobby Wengronowitz, PhD student in Sociology at Boston College. Interested in social movements, social change, environment, and agri-food systems. I've participated in OccupyBoston on and off since we took Dewey Square. Very interested in the organizational form of the movement and the decision-making process. bobbywego@gmail.com
• Lee Worden, Applied Mathematician. Focuses: ecological coexistence, mutualism, cooperation, change in social norms, and currently, consensus process. home site; open research wiki; current project.
• Jeramy Townsley, Sociology Adjunct at Butler University (and Marian Univ and IUPUI). Research interests: Social movements, construction of social identities, policy impact on socio-economic well-being (autoregressive time-series models). council@jeramyt.org
• Emma, graduate social scientist (psychology), artist/animator and activist based in Australia. Attempting to focusing on What Next? (i.e. After the revolution). Attempting to connect with voices from around the world and keep an open mind, as part of the grass roots effort to learn to do things in a grass roots way. Research interests: social change, science education, futurism, art technology and social change, cognitive and behavioural neuroscience, systems approaches. I am not here to formally study the revolution, I am interested in working with the revolution and building the future, and recognise that research into what's happening, as well as liberating existing research and data, is part of that process and would like to help. Pardon rant. Current blogging experiment: challengingduelism.tumblr.com with @Challengduelism lists being built.