For my Ada Lovelace Day Tribute this year, I would like to recognize Gabriella Coleman. Gabriella is a professor Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU with a background in anthropology. She studies the unique cultures of hacking, programming and free software politics. I first had the pleasure of meeting Gabriella at the Open Video Conference in 2009, where she gave a remarkable lecture on the relationship between computer code and poetry. Since then, I have continued to follow her work eagerly. Her current research into the parallels between trolling culture and trickster mythology has been very influential in my own study of Internet communities. In my experience with digitally oriented academic study, Gabriella’s work by far represents some of the most interesting, critical and insightful work I have encountered. Her perspective provides a critical counterpoint in a field often dominated by more qualitative analysis. She is also an all around awesome person. Her work and advice have been incredibly helpful to my personal work as a digital artist.
If you are not familiar with her work, check it out. It is well worth your time.
Ada Lovelace Day is an annual global celebration of women in technology and science. It is named after Ada Lovelace, who was arguably the world’s first computer programmer. If you know of a woman working in this field who you believe deserves recognition, (and I’m sure you do) write a blog post about her today!
