Welcome to Platypus in 2025! Last year, we published over 65 posts, almost half of which were also in a second language, and maintained a readership from 169 different countries. A full summary of CASTAC’s activities in 2024 can be found at our 2024 Year in Review. As we look ahead to another engaging year of publishing a wide range of work from the social sciences on science and technology, we are thankful for the labor that our editorial team and our authors continue to put in. We are also very grateful to you, our readers – thank you for being here every week!
Meet the 2025 team
With 25 Contributing Editors and 11 Multimodal Contributing Editors, this year’s team is our largest yet and brings together an incredibly diverse array of interests. Many of these interests are detailed in the bios below.
If you’d like to publish on Platypus, don’t hesitate to reach out to a Contributing Editor or Multimodal Contributing Editor whose interests are related to yours. You can find their contact information by clicking on their names. If you are unsure of who to get in touch with, email the Managing Editor, Kim Fernandes, at editor@castac.org.
Contributing Editors
Aaron is a medical anthropologist studying the use of electronic therapy programs to meet rising demand for mental health services. In particular, he is interested in automated, self-guided programs which replace the human clinician– a phenomenon he conceptualizes as “therapy without therapists.” Aaron’s research project is titled Psychic Retreats: The New Politics of Mental Health in the Global North considers how, in a time of escalating social and ecological crises, governments of wealthy nations turn to these inexpensive e-mental health programs as a ‘band-aid’ measure. In addition to psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and computer-human interaction, Aaron’s interests also include political economy, popular culture, and film. Prior to his current appointment as a postdoc at the Center for Mental Health Services at Washington University in St. Louis, Aaron received his PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University in 2023.
Ana is a doctoral student in anthropology at Oregon State University, working with cultures of computing and producing knowledge at the intersection of anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Her research interests include the materiality of AI, data centers and other data-driven technologies in the US context.
Aparna Raghu Menon is a third-year PhD candidate in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral research on autism and autistic non-verbal communication is grounded in critical disability studies, posthumanism and a social justice framework. Her work examines the norms and assumptions underpinning medicalized non-verbal communication approaches. In doing so, she hopes to open up spaces within disability studies for an exploration of autistic communication that takes into account the materiality of communication, relational embodiment, the environment, and the perspectives of autistic communicators. Aparna’s interests include disability studies, autism, autistic communication, posthumanism, and critical interpretive methods.
Clarissa Reche
Clarissa Reche is an artisan, designer, educator and transdisciplinary researcher living on the border between science and art. She works in the field of social studies of science and technology. She is a researcher in science journalism (FAPESP) at the Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism (NUDECRI, Unicamp) and works with the Feminist Anthropology of Science and Technology Network of Latin America. She has a PhD in Social Sciences (IFCH/Unicamp), a Master’s degree in Brazilian Cultures and Identities (IEB/USP), a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design (Mackenzie/ProUni) and Social Sciences (FFLCH/USP). She is part of the Mundaréu anthropology podcast team (Unicamp-UnB), where she works as a researcher, producer and scriptwriter. She conducts research on the production of knowledge in areas such as synthetic biology and anthropology, and is interested in the interfaces between the body, biology, technology, culture, modes of expression, ethics and knowledge, in dialogue with feminist and decolonial critiques. She believes that all knowledge passes through our fingertips.
Cydney (they/she) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Social Sustainability of Agriculture and Food Systems Lab at the University of Georgia (UGA), where they are examining the human dimensions of climate-smart agricultural practices across different ecoregions along the Cotton Belt and in the state of Idaho. In their work, Cydney builds on their interdisciplinary training to integrate methods across the critical social sciences, the physical and natural sciences, and performance/theatre to examine the relationships among people, technologies, and the environment. Cydney earned their B.S. Chem from the University of Michigan in 2013. They then relocated to Madrid, Spain, where they worked as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant and studied professional acting at La Escuela de Teatro La Lavandería. They earned their Ph.D. in Integrative Conservation (ICON) and Anthropology from UGA in May 2024, where they studied the lived experience of water insecurity in the semi-arid region of Ceará, Northeast Brazil. In their work, Cydney centers equity and justice to contribute to integrative approaches toward sustainable socioecological futures. They are excited to work with authors to publish in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Dayna Jeffrey
Dayna Jeffrey is a PhD candidate in the Science and Technology Studies program at York University. She holds a Master of Arts in Communication and Culture from York University/Toronto Metropolitan University and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Social Anthropology from York University. Dayna’s multidisciplinary background places her research interests at the intersection of innovative technology and society.
Dayna’s PhD dissertation focuses on the impacts of future sociological and technological expectations on technological development in the present. Drawing on a sociology of expectations theoretical approach, her dissertation focuses on a case study of the social and philosophical movement of transhumanism. Transhumanists are those who take seriously the endeavors of radical-life extension, post-humanity, and the development of superhuman level AI. She takes transhumanist visions seriously by examining their impacts on technological innovation. While transhumanist future visions are criticized for being overly speculative, these future visions have real world impacts in the present. Therefore, she studies futurist expectations, like transhumanist visions, because they have real social and material implications, such as the ways in which they shape research and development agendas and priorities as well as research and development funding decisions.
Wanqing Iris Zhou is a PhD student of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Her research interests lie in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI); anthropology/history of computing; knowledge production; technology, morality, and identities. Iris studies and works with computer scientists specializing in human-computer interaction (HCI) in university labs. Her project aims to elucidate what it means to be a practitioner of science in today’s world and how “good” technology is defined and designed.
Isabella Jaimes Rodriguez
Isabella Jaimes Rodríguez is an STS and CSCW researcher whose research focuses on how technology shapes and mediates relations within immigrant Latinx communities. Her work explores the intersection of technology, labor, and social justice, with an emphasis on digital platforms and media technologies. She is currently researching domestic labor mediated by these technologies and has previously studied ride-hailing platforms in Colombia as part of the Fairwork project, focusing on the shaping of mobilities. Isabella is a member of the Socio-technical Resistance and Ethical Technologies (STREET) Lab at the University of Toronto.
Iván has a Ph.D. in Anthropological Sciences from the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Iztapalapa campus. He is a lecturer at the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla and at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Studies, Puebla campus. Iván’s doctoral project focused on the transition from gaming to sports and work in the case of young Mexican video gamers aspiring to become professional digital athletes. His research interests include video games, leisure, labor, work, digital anthropology, ethnography, digital art, Mexico, and Latin America.
Jessica Caporusso is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at York University, Canada. Jessica studies bioenergy schemes in Mauritius, through which she examines the possibilities and complications of using sugarcane, a plant rooted in colonialism, to actualize energy futures. Her work queries how biofuels derived from sugarcane and its competitor plant, Arundo Donax, refigure popular imaginaries of what counts as ‘sustainable’ in an increasingly carbon-constrained world.
Kymberley Chu
Kymberley “Kym” Chu is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Princeton University. Her dissertation research focuses on a wide range of human-monkey interfaces that take place in Malaysia’s plantations and other types of peri-urban landscapes. Collaborating with scientists and plantation workers, Kym examines the intersection of scientific paradigms such as behavioral ecology and the structural dynamics of land governance in shaping their encounters with free-ranging monkeys. As a contributing editor, Kym’s areas of interest include: anthropology of capitalism, built environment, dialectical materialism, ecological politics, scientific knowledge production, multispecies theory, and livelihood/land governance.
Michelle Venetucci is a PhD candidate in the Yale anthropology department. She works at the intersection of finance, domesticity, and the production of inequality, investigating how speculative financial projects are reproduced in Silicon Valley. She also works with textiles.
Mine Egbatan
Mine Egbatan is a Ph.D. candidate in sociocultural anthropology with a minor in medical anthropology at the University of Arizona, School of Anthropology. Her research has an interdisciplinary focus to obtain a deeper understanding of the complexities of interactions between and intersections of disability, gender, and infrastructure, examining the complex, multi-layered ways disabled women in Turkey experience, internalize, repurpose, and resist resources, discourses and practices of the populist authoritarian state and the broader society.
Misria Shaik Ali is currently a PostDoctoral Fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She holds a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York and her dissertation is titled, “Becoming Irradiated: The Epistemic Politics of Neglect along India’s Nuclear Fuel Cycle.” Her research advances the field of Critical Nuclear Studies by putting Science and Technology Studies, Feminist Science Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Agnotology, Sensory Studies, Eco-crip theory, and Nuclear Studies in conversation with one another. She also researches Muslim alterity in India with a focus on STS, religious studies, alterity studies and violence studies. Her research and writings are published in academic publication platforms like Social Movement Studies, Tapuya Magazine, RSA Journal, Centre for 21st Century blog, and Seminar Magazine and in newspapers like Maktoob Media, TwoCircles.net, FirstPost, Outlook Magazine among others.
Nishanth has a Ph.D. from the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His first published paper is titled Grappling with Morphine: A Local History of Painkiller Use in Kerala, India (Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 2021). His area of focus falls broadly within the realms of care, technology, biomedicine, and pain.
Paige is a Contributing Editor with Platypus and a PhD candidate in the department of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her research examines the digital transformation of the American health system and its implications for access, equity, and work. Paige’s dissertation project investigates how digital technologies designed to automate diabetes management are playing out in the everyday lives of Americans with diabetes and the health workers who care for them. Prior to graduate school, she worked with startup companies developing new medical devices and digital health technologies.
Rachel Levine
Rachel Levine is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Her current work examines the normative and emergent ethics of human relationships with robotic “pets,” spanning design, distribution, and adoption/use. This research builds on Rachel’s training as an anthropologist with expertise in animal studies, public governance, and critical legal studies. Her doctoral research involved a close ethnographic analysis of dog-related injury lawsuits, challenging anthropocentrism in common law. The study revealed how techno-scientific systems—including digital infrastructures, forensic aesthetics, statistics, veterinary science, and medical imaging—construct some human injuries, and not others, as financially compensable harms carrying significant implications for multispecies communities. Across her research programs, Rachel interrogates how humans and non-human animals are co-constituted in public culture, legal practice, and governance.
Rushikesh is a PhD research scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. His research explores the consequences of modernity on the common lands, especially the pasture lands in India. Rushikesh is doing an ethnographic study of a nomadic pastoral community called “Dhangar,” located in the western part of India, studying their day to day dealings with the changing reality of land and their aspirations from the ‘developing’ world. Rushikeshi s interested in curating posts that deal with anything related to land, commons, nomadism, modernity, and bureaucracy. Rushikesh is also interested in any post that broadly fits into the theme of Sociology of Knowledge.
Sam DiBella is a PhD candidate in information studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. His dissertation research is an ethnography of surveillance technology in the District of Columbia. His writing has appeared in Surveillance & Society, the International Journal of Communication, Public Books, and the LSE Review of Books, among others. His research focuses on the social values of privacy, secrecy, and anonymity and practices of lateral surveillance and digital vigilantism. For Platypus, he is particularly interested in working on articles that deal with those issues, as well as contributions about scholar-led publishing itself.
Shreyasha Paudel
Shreyasha is a PhD student in Computer Science, with a specialization in Women and Gender Studies at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation research examines the information practices of grassroots activists and civic tech organizations developing digital tools for environmental and climate justice in Nepal. Through this research, she seeks to understand the role of digital technology and data as sites of political contestation that shape our understanding of climate change and possible responses to it.
Sonia is a PhD student in Science and Technology Studies (STS) at Cornell University interested in state-science relationships. Grounded in postcolonial studies of technoscience, affect and the nation, her PhD project explores in a historical ethnography the past and present of Indian supercomputers and the Indian scientists that coalesce around them. Ultimately, it elucidates how hegemonic narratives of national identity materialize in the scientific lives of Indian supercomputing scientists and in the scientization of patriotism and national pride. Sonia also conducted research on U.S. supercomputing, Indian climate modeling, and religious worship in Hindu temples. Reach out to her for contributions on topics such as: postcolonial science and technology studies, the history and anthropology of computing, infrastructure, nationalism, and affect studies, the anthropology of ontology, environmental ethics, and discourses on the Anthropocene.
Soojin is a Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at Harvard University. Her doctoral project explores the emerging discourses and practices surrounding the right to be forgotten in South Korea. Through close engagement with feminist activism and support systems for victims of digital sex crimes, Soojin’s work examines how online data removal intersects with the reconfiguration of gender and personhood in the contemporary digital era. She also expanded her methodological focus on digital ethnography, building on her previous MA research on the attention economy and homosociality within live streaming and anonymous forums.
Sumitra Nair is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Her research focuses on how climate and climate change is sensed in the monsoon ecologies of coastal South Asia. She is particularly interested in the lives of waters, muds, sands and salts. She also has research interests in qualitative research method futures, questions of measurement, coastal cities and infrastructures.
Tayeba Batool is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation project focuses on governance, expertise, and ecology of urban trees and forests in Pakistan. She also works on anthropology of climate change, urban ecology, and ecological justice.
Ziya Kaya received his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology, with a minor in geography, from the University of Arizona in August 2024. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His research focuses on digital, biotechnological, and financial interventions in Turkey’s agroecologies.
Multimodal Contributing Editors
Adair, a multimodal contributing editor, is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Arizona. Adair researches ecosystem management, and is particularly interested in forestry, fire, climate adaptation, plant genomic science, disaster, and restoration ecology. Adair’s creative interests include DIY and community-produced theatre, printing, and metal jewelry. You can find Adair in the San Francisco Bay Area or by email at steig@arizona.edu.
Chen Shen (she/her) is a second-year PhD student in Anthropology at Stanford University. Her research interests include electricity and energy, environmental media, and engaged and multimodal ethnography.
Hae-Seo is a PhD candidate in sociocultural anthropology at University of California, Irvine. Her dissertation research is about the sociopolitical environment in which outer space is explored in South Korea, where shamanist, folk, and scientific cosmologies co-constitute the material and social relations of South Korea’s space exploration. Hae-Seo also studies the nascent political movement in South Korea against the privatization and militarization of outer space. She is interested in learning about different cosmologies and folk stories of outer space from around the world, and engages with feminist, postcolonial, and indigenous theories of science and technology. Hae-Seo is also a contributing editor for AnthroPod: The Podcast for the Society of Cultural Anthropology. She lives with many cats!
Jennifer Su is a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Her research traces the environmental histories of colonialism and war in Vietnam, and how they intersect with contemporary projects of techno-optimism seeking to transform industrial agriculture. In her art practice, she works with still and moving images to document the unruliness of urban ecologies. She welcomes pitches from contributors looking to publish in Vietnamese.
Karina Aranda
Karina Aranda holds an MA in History of Science, Technology, and Medicine from the University of Manchester (UK). She has experience in STS editing and publishing, having worked in the Department of Science, Technology, and Health at Fondo de Cultura Económica, a Latin American publishing house based in Mexico. Karina’s areas of interest are experimental ethnographic methodologies, STS research as a practice of care, feminist pedagogies, disability and neurodiversity.
Mac Andre Arboleda is an artist exploring the sickness of the Internet through research and dialogue, art and text, organizing and publishing. He is the Founding President of the UP Internet Freedom Network and is an artist-in-residence at Dreaming Beyond AI. A recipient of the 2024 Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award, Mac is also currently an MA student in Media Arts Cultures under an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship.
Maria is a social anthropologist from Oaxaca, Mexico, focusing her research and practice on the webs formed by labour, migration, care, territory, and development in contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean. Maria explores these topics through academic research as well as editorial and pedagogical tools. She coordinates magma, an independent research-centred press and radio project on political ecology. Maria holds a Master’s degree in Social Anthropological Research from the University of Cambridge, and enjoys organising workshops and working with tools like radio, video, photo, and maps.
Mauricio Baez
Mauricio Báez is a Ph.D. candidate at Universidad Javeriana. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Epistemology of Social and Natural Sciences. His research experience includes serving as a research assistant on projects exploring decolonial perspectives in psychology, the geopolitics of knowledge, and the history of psychology in Colombia. His current research focuses on the geopolitics of knowledge in areas of innovation in neuroscience within the Global South. In addition, he has worked on the production of various audiovisual projects, including visuals for concerts, video art, and video essays, among others.
Nashra Mahmood is a 8th year in Gender Studies PhD program at University of California, Los Angeles. They hold a BA in Economics and Gender Studies from Knox College and an MA in Gender Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Their undergraduate research focused on linkages between feminized labor and unionization in North India’s informal economy. Their ongoing research examines the relationship between new media and Indian nation-making, with an emphasis on civic, activist, nationalist, and authoritarian media practices. It uncovers how the current Indian government practices agnotology through the nationwide initiative, Digital India.
Prerna is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at UC Irvine. She researches comparative pedagogical cultures of science, examining how, where, and why pedagogy is designed and mobilized for radical and critical activation in the sciences. As a researcher in the UCI EcoGovLab, Prerna helps build educational and pedagogical frameworks for recognizing, characterizing, and addressing environmental and social injustices at the university and K-12 levels. Prerna is also a Contributing Editor in the Teaching Tools section of Fieldsights, the online blog for the Society of Cultural Anthropology. Prerna is a member of the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography (PECE), and of the Science Teaching Group in the organization Science for the People.
Srishti Sood is a PhD Candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at the George Washington University. Broadly, she works at the intersection of environmental anthropology, feminist STS, and political ecology, particularly in the Global South. Her dissertation research focuses on the interplay of political performance, religious nationalism, and urban development as they intersect in the restoration of the river Ganges in India. As a multimodal contributing editor, Srishti is interested in curating and co-creating posts that examine and experiment with alternate archives, forms of representation, and textuality. She has previously worked/researched in museums in India, the UK, and the US.
Special Series Editor
Katie Ulrich, Editor-at-Large
Katie Ulrich is an anthropologist and postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Katie’s research examines how science and resource extraction come together in the making of renewable materials to address climate change. Their work spans environmental anthropology, feminist science and technology studies, political economy, and energy humanities. Follow Katie’s work at kathleenulrich.com.
Platypus Leadership
Angela VandenBroek, Web Producer
Angela K. VandenBroek is a sociocultural anthropologist researching technologies, innovation, and business (and all the hype that entails) as an assistant professor at Texas State University, where she is also the director of the Innovative Anthropologies Lab. Her research sits at the intersection of business and design anthropology and feminist science and technology studies. In addition to a PhD in anthropology, she has more than thirteen years of experience as an applied anthropologist in information technologies, design, marketing, and organizational strategy. She has served as a board member and web producer for CASTAC since 2013 and is responsible for maintaining CASTAC’s digital infrastructures and brand.
Kim Fernandes, Managing Editor
Kim is a postdoctoral fellow in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. As a researcher, writer and educator, their work lies at the intersections of disability, data and technology. Fernandes has previously been a Platypus Contributing Editor from 2020 – 2023. They are also an affiliate at Data and Society and the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life. Fernandes holds a joint PhD (with distinction) in Anthropology and Education from the University of Pennsylvania. More about Kim’s work can be found here.
Natalia Orrego, Public Relations Manager
Natalia Orrego is a PhD student in anthropology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Santiago de Chile) working at the intersection of infrastructure studies, digital anthropology and telecommunication governance. Her dissertation is about the 5G rollout in Chile from a perspective that highlights how it is created, used, and resisted in everyday life.
