Reframing Climate Data: Situating Data in Histories in Place

Speaker: Heidi Biggs, Assistant Professor,  School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech

Abstract: Climate change is one of the most pressing issues we face today as a society. The phenomenon has inspired new awareness of human entanglements with non-human others (like plants, animals, and ecologies) as well as disparate impacts that fall along familiar lines (laid via histories) of race, gender, class, and access. In this talk, I discuss my research agenda, which uses design and making alongside humanistic theory and sensitivities to lay out critical agendas for Sustainable Human Computer Interaction (SHCI) and Interaction Design Research. Over the course of two design research projects, I discuss the entanglements of climate change, data, and embodied histories in place. By framing climate change impacts as tied to data practices, unevenly distributed, and historically situated, it shifts narratives to more local, actionable, and justice-oriented interventions. This work ultimately seeks to expand notions of criticality in sustainable HCI research.

Bio: Heidi Biggs is an Assistant Professor at the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Institute of Technology. They research Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and design focused on environmental sustainability in computing. Their approach to sustainability in computing seeks to expand ecological thinking in HCI through local, situated, and critical lenses. They were a pre-doctoral fellow in the Center for Humanities and Informatics and Penn State University and a Hanauer Fellow in Interdisciplinary Humanities at the University of Washington. They hold a PhD in Informatics from Penn State University and a MDes in Interaction Design from the University of Washington. Biggs’ work is featured in ACM SIGCHI conference proceedings such as CHI, CSCW, and DIS, the HCI Journal, as well as arts-based venues such as Textile Intersections in London, and contemporary performance venue On the Boards, in Seattle, WA. 

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IPaT's fall 2024 lunch lecture calendar and lecture/talk (day of) streaming info can be found here: https://research.gatech.edu/ipat/lunch-lectures.

The IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series is free and features guest speakers presenting on topics related to people-centered technologies and their impact on society. Lunch is provided at 12:00 p.m. and the talks begin at 12:30 p.m. Join us weekly or watch video replays.