V I R G I N I A E U B A N K S

Department of Women’s Studies
Social Science 341
University at Albany, SUNY
Albany, NY 12222
(518) 442-5281

veubanks@albany.edu
http://www.populartechnology.org/

c u r r i c u l u m v i t a e

Current Position
Assistant Professor, Department of Women’s Studies, University at Albany, SUNY

Education
2004 Ph.D., Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Dissertation: “Popular Technology: Citizenship and Inequality in the Information Economy”
Committee: Nancy Campbell (Chair), Rayvonne Fouche, Davydd Greenwood (Cornell
University), David Hess, Langdon Winner

1999 MS, Communication and Rhetoric, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute
Thesis: “From Ulysses to Usenet: The Mythography of the ‘New Frontier’”

1994 BA, American Literary Culture (Independent Major), University of California, Santa Cruz

Selected Publications
“Trapped in the Digital Divide: The Distributive Paradigm in Community Informatics.” The Journal of Community Informatics. Under Review.

“Our Knowledge, Our Power: Popular Technology and Critical Citizenship,” in Feminist Pedagogies in Action: Teaching Beyond Disciplines, Maralee Mayberry, Sara Crawley, Jennifer Lewis, eds. Routledge. Article accepted to volume, volume currently under review.

”Technologies of Citizenship: Surveillance and Political Learning in the Welfare System,” in Surveillance and Security: Technology and Politics in Everyday Life, Torin Monihan (editor), Routledge, Fall 2006.

“Making Sense of Imbrication: Popular Technology and ‘Inside-Out’ Methodologies” (with Nancy D. Campbell). Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2004. Toronto, ON: 65-73, 2004.

“Cyberfeminism Meets NAFTAzteca: Recoding the Technotext,” in Appropriating Technologies, Ron Eglash (editor), Minneapolois: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

“Hacking Barbie” and “Paradigms and Perversions: A Woman’s Place in Cyberspace,” in Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History of American Feminism, Dawn Keetley and John Pettergrew (editors), Madison, WI: Madison House, 2000.

“Biofunk.” Salon Magazine. August 4, 1999. http://archive.salon.com/books/it/1999/08/04/biofunk/

Brillo Magazine (http://www.brillomag.net). Brillo is an electronic journal devoted to the inclusion of marginalized voices in the movement towards a global electronic information infrastructure that I wrote, edited, and designed from 1995-1998.

Courses Taught
Research Seminar in Women’s Studies (Graduate Seminar)
Feminist Thought and Public Policy (Graduate Seminar)
Popular Technology: Advocacy and Activism in an Age of IT
Classism, Racism, Sexism: In the Information Age (Presidential Scholars Section)
Classism, Racism, Sexism: Technology
Introduction to Science and Technology Studies
Information Technology Revolution: Myth or Reality?
Writing to the World Wide Web
Cyberculture

Research Experience
Popular Technology Saturday Schools, Ongoing
The Popular Technology Saturday Schools, supported by a $4,000 grant from the Holding Our Own Foundation, use popular education methods to create spaces in which low-income people can define and engage the injustices of the “high-tech” global economy. Building on ideas developed in the summer workshop, monthly “Saturday Schools,” based on the model of the St. John’s Island Citizenship Schools, provide space in which low-income people can discuss and develop practical solutions to the problems welfare recipients face in the Capital Region. In addition to providing basic supports necessary for women to “think together,” the Saturday Schools will provide organizing, facilitation, and technology training. It is particularly appropriate to use technology tools to confront these problems, as the region’s dedication to a high-tech economy brings new social and economic justice challenges (increasing income inequality, decreasing availability of affordable housing, and technological surveillance of welfare recipients, for example).

Popular Technology Summer Workshop, July 2005
The Popular Technology Summer Workshops draw together concerned community members, organizers and academics to collaboratively research how technological systems affect our lives, work, families and communities every day. The workshops are annual three-day intensives intended to develop a high-tech equity agenda for the Capital Region of New York, and to provide networking, media and organizing training. In July 2005, the theme of the workshop was “Our Knowledge, Our Power: Surviving Welfare.”

Community Outreach Partnership Center (COPC), Research Assistant, RPI, Fall ‘01 – Sum ’ 03
Continuing outreach and engagement projects begun in the Community Informatics and Public Service Internship research assistantships. Particularly concentrating on the facilitation of a participatory design team called WYMSM (Women at the YWCA Making Social Movement), which uses technology to make social change by and for women who reside at the Troy-Cohoes YWCA.

Initiative for Technology and Self, Research Fellow, Massachusetts Instit. of Technology, Sum ‘01 Worked with Sherry Turkle to develop links with other campus initiatives interested in issues of technology and identity. Additionally, developed an educational program drawing on the mathematical complexity of break beat and other urban musics called “Droppin’ Science” at the MIT Media Lab (http://www.brillomag.net/DS/).

Public Service Internship, Research Assistant, RPI, Sum ‘01
Charged with reforming the Institute’s Public Service internship program to focus on team-based, sustained projects in partnership with local community-building organizations.

Community Informatics, Research Assistant, RPI, Spr ’01
Developed two demonstration projects that provide proof-of-concept for “community informatics” approaches to building a “two-way bridge” across the digital divide to identify local needs and assets, culturally specific modes of engagement with IT, and foster participatory design of information technology.

Center for Ethics and Complex Systems, Research Assistant, RPI, Spr and Sum ‘00

Conferences and Invited Lectures
Queens University, Invited Lecture, The Surveillance Project Seminar Series, April 2006.
“Technologies of Citizenship: Surveillance and Political Learning in the Welfare System”

Iowa State University, Invited Lecture, History of Technology and Science Series, March 30, 2006.
“Deeper than a Digital Divide: Women, Welfare and the 'High-Tech' Economy”

Society for the Social Studies of Science, Pasadena, CA, October 2005
“Our Knowledge, Our Power: Popular Technology,” Panel Co-Chair, “Technologies of Citizenship: Surveillance and the Regulation of Difference”

National Women’s Studies Association, Orlando, FL, June 2005
“’I Could Be A Software Queen: Technologies of Citizenship in the Welfare Office”; Discussant on roundtable “Decolonizing the Future: Reclaiming Cyber Environments”

Participatory Design Cenference, Toronto, ON, July 2004
“Making Sense of Imbrication: Popular Technology and ‘Inside-Out’ Methodologies”

Society for the Social Studies of Science, Atlanta, October 2003
“Together (with the Computer): Participatory Action Research and Science and Technology Studies”
Panel organizer: “The Problems -- and Promise -- of Participatory Research Strategies”

Society for the Social Studies of Science, Boston, October 2001
“‘Technology Shops’ and Asset-Based Community Development.”

National Women’s Studies Association, Minneapolis, 2001
”Access is Never Enough” presented on panel Re-structuring Feminist Agency: Gendered Technologies of Empowerment.

FACES Cyberfeminist Gathering, Grand Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, France, December 2000“What ever happened to cyberfeminism?” Invited speaker.

American Anthropological Association Convention, San Francisco, November 2000
"Universal Access and Electronic Frontiers" presented on invited panel Public Access to Everything.

Media In Transition, MIT, Boston, October 8-10 1999
"The Mythography of the 'New Frontier'" presented on the panel The Metaphors We Live By.

Grants, Awards, and Academic Honors
Holding Our Own Foundation “Women Confronting the Roots of Violence” Grant (2005/6).
Collaborative grant between the Popular Technology Workshops, Hudson-Mohawk Independent Media Center, and the YWCA of Troy-Cohoes. Awarded $4000 for “Our Knowledge, Our Power: Saturday Schools.” See Research Experience description, above.

University at Albany, SUNY College of Arts and Sciences Release-Time Award (2005/6)
Awarded one course release, Spring 2006, to complete National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, titled “Popular Technology Research and Education: Campus-Community Partnerships for High-Tech Equity.” The grant will focus on using service learning techniques at the undergraduate and graduate level to develop critical technological literacy projects in partnership with the Albany, Schenectady, and Troy communities.

National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant (2003-4)
James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement (2000)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Topper Award (1999-2000)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Graduate School Fellowship (1997-8)
University of California Regent’s Scholar (1990-4)

Community Organizing & Popular Education Programs
YWCA Community Technology Lab, YWCA of Troy-Cohoes, Fall 2002-Present
Led the participatory design process of creating a technology lab outfitted with nine computers, donated by the City of Troy, which offers technological skills classes, space for community members to develop group projects, and creative studio time.

Women at the YWCA Making Social Movement (WYMSM), YWCA of Troy-Cohoes, Wint 2001 - Fall 2003
WYMSM is a community-building collaboration between RPI and members of the YWCA community that seeks to use technology as a tool of social change. I facilitate the group and provide resources to produce software and a video documentary, organize community peer education workshops and provide technology mentoring opportunities.

Women’s Economic Empowerment Popular Education Series, YWCA of Troy-Cohoes, Summer/Fall 2003
With the Sally Catlin Resource Center and other Troy community building organizations, collaborated to produce a series of workshops and activities addressing women’s economic instability at home and abroad. Sessions included “What’s Women’s Work? Mapping Labor and Power,” “How Much is Enough? The Self-Sufficiency Standard,” and “Who’s Counting? Women in the Global Economy,” and were attended by more than 110 people.

WYRED Enterprises (WE), The ARK, Taylor Apartments, Summer 2000
Created a HUD-supported youth entrepreneurship program, WYRED Enterprises (WE), which operated a web page design business that created sites for community members and paying commercial clients. Teens living in public housing developed technical, employment, and professional skills while concentrating on collaborative decision-making and leadership development.

University and Department Service
Representative, College of Arts and Science Council (Academic Policy Committee)
Representative, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Department of Women’s Studies
Representative, Development Committee, Department of Women’s Studies

Student Committees
Anne Bink, MA, Women’s Studies, “From the Workhouse to the Clinic: Foucault and Poverty Policy” (Summer 2005)
Jessica Garrity, MA, Women’s Studies, “Transsexuals and Competitive Athletics” (Spring 2006)
Ebony Freedom Harris, MA, Women’s Studies, “African-American Women in the Custodial State” (Fall 2005)
Nada Riffai, MA, Public Policy and Administration, “Prostitution Policy: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” (Summer 2005)
Jamy Stammel, MA, Women’s Studies, “Feminist and Collective Pedagogy” (Fall 2005)