Privacy: How we do it and when it matters most

Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 3:30pm
Haldeman 041
Christena Nippert-Eng
Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Co-sponsored by ISTS and Sociology Department Reitman/DeGrange Memorial Lecture

Christena Nippert-Eng

Abstract

How do we think about privacy? How do we actually do it? What, exactly, is the anatomy of a privacy violation and how does technology give us a useful entry point to understanding when privacy really matters? Dr. Nippert-Eng will address these issues and more, drawing from research for Islands of Privacy (2010, University of Chicago Press) and her current work on privacy socialization.

Bio

Professor Nippert-Eng's work has been featured extensively in the media, including radio, television and newspaper interviews ranging from NPR's "Talk of the Nation" to programs on PBS and MSNBC and stories for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek,  Working Mother and Fast Company. She has been an invited speaker for such diverse venues as the Smithsonian Museum, the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons' Pediatric Group, Reason Magazine's Dynamic Visions conference, MotherRead/FatherRead literacy organization, and the Industrial Design Society of America.

Dr. Nippert-Eng teaches film-, project-, field-, and lecture-based courses at IIT and enjoys an on-going relationship with the Instituto des Artes Visuais (IADE) in Lisbon, Portugal, where she serves on the Counseling Committee for the doctoral program and on the editorial board for The (Radical) Designist, Journal of Design Culture. She is also on the editorial board of the International Journal of Design, edited by Lin-Lin Chen at the Graduate Institute of Design, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

Professor Nippert-Eng has held elected council positions for the American Sociological Association's sections on the Sociology of Culture and Work, Organization and Occupations. She was a member of the advisory board for Dr. Nina Wakeford's research center, INCITE, at the University of Surrey in London. From 2010-2011, Dr. Nippert-Eng will serve as the national Chair of the Communication and Information Technologies Section of the American Sociological Association.  She also has held elected positions on the ASA Section Councils for the "Sociology of Culture" and "Work, Organization and Occupations." She is exceptionally proud to be a founding partner of the Chicago Graduate Student Ethnography Conference, now it its 13th year. She also spent a week in June 2009 working with the first cohort of masters students at the Copenhagen Institute for Interaction Design.

In addition to collaborations with other scholars and non-profit organizations Dr. Nippert-Eng conducts industrial research on people's behavior and relationships with objects and spaces, including information and communication technologies. She also consults with in-house research groups on the use of ethnographic methods for industrial applications. Past clients include Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Gillette, Hilton Hotels, and Steelcase.

Slides and Video

Christena Nippert-Eng's Slides