ABOUT ME
I'm a 2023–2024 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In the Fall of 2024, I will be starting as Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia.
My research focuses on issues of equity, justice, and the environmental impacts of our digital worlds. I'm currently writing a book on the local politics of digital infrastructure development and the limits of digital growth based on an ethnography in Northern Virginia and Southern Inland California.
For requests or to get in touch you can find me at: lbridges@cyber.harvard.edu
Bio (short):
Lauren E. Bridges is a 2023-2024 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and in 2024 will start as Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She researches the social and environmental impacts of Big Data Infrastructures. Bridges has published in New Media & Society, Big Data & Society, Information, Communication & Society, and received awards and honorary mentions from International Communication Association, National Communication Association, and the Association for Internet Researchers. She received her Ph.D.
('23) and M.A. ('19) from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Bio (longer):
Lauren Bridges is a 2023-2024 fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and in 2024 will start as Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She researches the social and environmental impacts of big data infrastructures, with a focus on "the cloud" and what kinds of surveillance regimes, labor relations, and environmental impacts it makes possible and what it obscures.
Her academic writing has been published in journals such as New Media & Society, Big Data & Society, Information, Communication & Society. Her work has received academic awards and honorary mentions from associations such as the International Communication Association, National Communication Association, and the Association of Internet Researchers. In addition to her academic writing, Bridges has written for The Guardian, been interviewed on BBC Newsday, NPR's 1A, the Anti-Dystopians podcast, and NBC (here and here).
Bridges is co-PI of a 2-year grant from the Internet Society, "Greening from the Margins: the Geopolitics of Extractive, Operational, and Post-Consumer E-waste management" tracing the global flows of e-waste throughout the tech supply chain. She also holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in communication from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in creative writing, publishing, and editing from the University of Melbourne, and a B.A. in business from Queensland University of Technology. Prior to academia, she worked in academic publishing and the nonprofit sector with a focus on social policy.