Research

Themes of technology, well-being, and change among the poor infuse my work. My current research looks at how mobile phones are being adopted and used in a village in western Kenya. This presents an example of the social shaping of technology; the mobile phone is not the same technology in rural Kenya as elsewhere. Also, phones will help reshape rural livelihoods, and might enhance or constrict capabilities. This current work extends prior research into the social impacts of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and community-based responses. My earlier work focused on tropical deforestation and agricultural colonization in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. Thanks to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Newcomb College Institute at Tulane, a Research Enhancement Award (Tulane) for funding aspects of my research.

Hybrid Technologies: the hoe and the mobile phone in the age of HIV/AIDS
~ Original Proposal for Hybrid Technologies to NSF
~ AIDS and Gardens article in Population and Environment
~ Report to NSF on Hybrid Technologies Project
~ Digital Trends presentation at Tulane (October 16, 2008) (on Youtube)
~ Presentation to the CDC and MOH in Nairobi, Kenya (September 2008)
~ Brown-Bag Seminar in International Health & Development, December 3, 2008
~ Presentation at Global Health Fellows, USAID, October 28, 2009 --plus the
~ Handout on 'mobile phones for health & development' (talk at GHF, USAID)

Papers & Manuscripts (Hybrid Technologies research)
~ “With My Phone, I Can’t Starve to Communicate”: Mobile Phones ... in Bungoma District, Kenya
~ Mobile Phone Adoption and Use in Rural Kenya: Preliminary Findings from a Village Census
~ 13 Ways of Looking at the Mobile Phone... Social Science Insights into the Study of Technology
~ Population, Health and Livelihoods (Working Paper 4)
~ Manuscript to ITID on mobile phone use and users (under review)

Power is Knowledge: field trials of mobile phone charging products for off-grid locations
~ Power is Knowledge Project Overview
~ Narrative Report of January 2009 trials of phone-charging systems in Kenya
~ Slide show of January 2009 trials
~Newcomb funded Field Trials of Freeplay

Crops, Cellphones and T-Cells (older research project)
~ Ploughs and HIV/AIDS in South Nyanza
~proposal and other documents upon request