Alex Lu

Alex Jiahong Lu is a sociotechnical scholar with a background in social work whose research examines how emerging sociotechnical systems and infrastructures shape everyday life, particularly for historically marginalized communities. His work brings together critical computing, critical and participatory design, and community-based participatory research in human–computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), and science and technology studies (STS).

Grounded in qualitative methods and community-based participatory research approaches, Lu’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the everyday labor and sociotechnical practices of navigating, resisting, and negotiating with data-driven and technopolitical infrastructures, including policing surveillance technologies; community-based and arts-based research methods in computing; and critical, participatory, and speculative design. He is especially interested in intergenerational and cross-cultural collaboration and solidarity, and in statecraft and governance in China.

Lu collaborates closely with community partners to center impacted communities’ voices in technology design, policy-making, and knowledge co-production and dissemination. His work has received honors such as the Spirit of Detroit Award from the Detroit City Council, the Volunteer Appreciation Award from Friends of Parkside, and Best Paper and Best Paper Honorable Mention awards at the ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference and the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Ph.D., Information Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
M.S.I, Information Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
M.S.W., Social Work, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
B.E., Information Engineering and Media, Nanyang Technological University

Digital Ethnography Working Group
Power and Inequality in Media and Technology Working Group
Community Design for Health and Wellness
Media, Inequality, and Change Center