Kevin Ackermann, CCT 2020

Undergraduate institution and major: University of Missouri, Journalism

Area of focus in CCT: Platform Governance, Content Moderation, Alternative Digital Networks, and Tech Law and Policy. Those are the main four areas, at least. 🙂

What did you do before CCT? Before coming to CCT, I worked as an intern at a social-justice oriented web design study in New York City called Madeo before working at the nonprofit Launch_Code in St. Louis.

What activities did you participate in during CCT? I participated in Gnovis activities, worked with the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), and was a Teaching Assistant for CCTP-505: Introduction to CCT.

Why did you choose CCT? CCT seemed like a program that would allow me to investigate interdisciplinary sociotechnical issues facing our society. I liked that CCT recognized the interdisciplinary nature of sociotechnical problems and engaged that interdisciplinary vibe.

What are you doing now? Where are you based? After graduating, I used the skills I honed in Dr Meg Leta Jones‘s Archival Methodology course to work as a research assistant for Dan Bouk and danah boyd at Data + Society. I then worked at Georgetown University’s Tech and Society Initiative again as a Research Assistant for danah boyd. Recently, I’ve moved to Chicago, where I am pursuing my PhD in the Media, Technology and Society program at Northwestern University.

What aspects of CCT have helped guide your career path? Within CCT, there is a lot of freedom to choose a “track” within multiple different realms of Communication, Culture and Technology studies. This freedom helped me find mentors with whom I really saw myself aligned with, in my case Dr. Meg Jones. The mentorship I had under Dr. Jones helped give me real research experience that helped me land the jobs and programs that I was able to enter after my receiving my MA degree.