Vera Khovanskaya is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information. Prior to joining the Faculty of Information, she was a CRA Computing Innovations Fellow at the University of California, San Diego, where she was a member of the Just Transitions Initiative, the Feminist Labor Lab, and the Design Lab. Her research examines the impacts of data collection in the workplace, the opportunities and challenges of data-driven approaches to worker advocacy, and the barriers to worker-centered and community-driven technology design. Prior to her current role, she organized with UAW 5810 and Cornell Graduate Students United.

I am a new faculty member at the Faculty of Information. I am also a faculty affiliate with the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and hold a cross-appointment with the Department of Computer Science and (imminently!) with the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources (CIRHR) at the University of Toronto.

I am the director of the Labour Process and Technology Lab (Labour Lab) at UofT.

I study the role of data tools and technical expertise in workers advocacy organizations. My recent work has examined how unions have used workplace data in the past and how contemporary data tools impact organizing in the present. I also study how worker-centered software is built, specifically attending to the ways that contemporary pathways for technology innovation militate against worker-centered and community-driven technology design.

My research combines qualitative, quantitative, community-driven, and design research approaches with historical analysis in order to make arguments about the long-term implications of applying technical expertise and data-driven methods to address problems in the workplace. My goal is to support workplace activists, organizers, and advocates in accessing and building data tools to accomplish their goals in a sustainable and democratic way. 

I was previously a CRA/NSF Postdoctoral Computing Innovation Fellow at UC San Diego where I worked with Lilly Irani. At UCSD, I was a member of the Department of Communication, the Design Lab, the Feminist Labor Lab, and the Just Transitions Initiative. At Cornell, my thesis advisor was Phoebe Sengers. My dissertation committee also featured Karen EC Levy, Adam Seth Litwin, and Lynn Dombrowski. I am an alumna-member of the Culturally Embedded Computing Group, CEmCom.

Affiliations:

• Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information
• Cross appointment, Department of Computer Science
• Director, Labour Process and Technology Lab
• TBC, Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources