Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies
Dr. Samantha Shorey (Ph.D., University of Washington) is a design researcher who studies how narratives about innovation create opportunities or build barriers for people to become innovators. Her work engages overlooked stories of innovation to recognize the contributions of women to technology design—both presently and in the past. Dr. Shorey is currently leading an NSF funded project examining how Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are being adopted and adapted by essential workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. She uses methods of ethnography and critical making to learn about various technology design processes, ranging from prototyping with 3D printing to engineering with e-textiles. Dr. Shorey's teaching is dedicated to helping students understand how workplace cultures impact the development and diffusion of new technology.
Dr. Shorey's work has been published in communication journals such as New Media and Society, as well as proceedings for the Association of Computing Management conferences on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI) and Designing Interactive Systems. Before coming to UT, she was a fellow at the Smithsonian Museum's Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, where she investigated the women who handmade computer hardware for the Apollo moon missions. She was a research associate in the Tactile and Tactical Design Lab in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington. She has also worked with collaborative research teams at the University of Oxford, MIT, and as a pre-doctoral intern at Airbnb.
Ph.D. - Communication, University of Washington
M.A. - Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst