Ongoing Research

I am a cognitive sociologist, interested in how membership in various groups affects the ways we think and make sense of the world. My approach is grounded in the traditions of formal sociology, looking across what might otherwise seem to be disparate, unrelated cases of a thing to understand more about it and the objects and behaviors associated with it. Throughout my career, I have enjoyed thinking deeply about a shared, cultural concept—e.g., “home”, “work”, “privacy”, “secrecy”, “camouflage”—and exploring how this concept appears in and is shaped by individuals’ everyday, visible behaviors.

The combination of a highly focused analytical lens, and a rigorous, creative approach to fieldwork and data analysis runs throughout my scholarly and applied, proprietary research. My interest in technology and design stems from and is layered on top this foundational approach. I now pursue my interest in cognition, group membership, and the study of everyday social and technologically-mediated behaviors to both human and nonhuman animal populations.

Camouflage. I am currently working on a book project entitled, Camouflage: Across Species, the Face-to-Face and Digital Realms. A variety of students have been working with me on projects related to this part of my work.  The first project has looked at the names videogame players use when playing online.  In these often toxic environments, gamertags can help players camouflage themselves while still signaling important parts of their identities to others.  Another project focused on spearphishing attacks to better understand how scammers deceive well-meaning—even well-trained—individuals through targeted, socially engineered, email and social media posts. A third project is a continuation of ideas from both of these studies as we look at catfishing in online dating, and how dating site and dating app users understand deception in a dating context—how common is deception, when is deception permissible or even encouraged, and how can someone avoid being deceived?  We have added two new projects in under the umbrella of camouflage and deception in the Fall of 2024.  One, with Ritika Gairola and Colin Gray, on the ways principles of fraud are reflected in the design of dark patterns on the web.  A second new project is with Nick Abegg and Apu Kapadia, focused on taking advantage of children via deceptive elements in video games.

Other projects. More details to come! In the meantime, check out the various projects below.