INFORM Lab: Interdisciplinary Futures of Research and Method
Goals
The INFORM Lab will cultivate a community of students and faculty dedicated to exploring how technology, gender, and justice converge to shape new forms of harm and care. Faculty and Graduate students will mentor undergraduates in hands-on projects that connect research with lived experience, creative practice, and community engagement. The long-term vision is to establish an interdisciplinary hub that inspires ethical and transformative approaches to studying and addressing social harm related to technology and gender.
The INFORM Lab is a collaborative, interdisciplinary hub where students, faculty, and community partners work together to understand and respond to the evolving landscape of social harm. We explore how technology, gender, justice, and the environment intersect to shape both harm and care in people’s everyday lives; whether through online spaces, institutions, or communities. Our mission is to equip students with creative, ethical, and transformative research methods that help them engage with pressing social issues and co-create change.
Students in the lab participate in hands-on, community-driven projects that connect research with practice and public engagement. This engagement includes organizing digital storytelling workshops, that address issues at the intersections of online gender-based violence, algorithmic bias in content moderation, and the social impacts of physical and digital surveillance. Students work with local and online communities to co-create knowledge, raise awareness about digital harms such as online abuse and algorithmic bias, and develop restorative strategies that promote inclusion and care. Current initiatives include developing an educational speaker series, building web resources with and for local communities, and creating curricula both inside and outside the university. Students also have opportunities to workshop writing, research, and artistic expression related to transformative justice. Through these collaborations, the lab provides mentorship, practical skills, and a space to design public-facing project such as zines, digital archives, and policy briefs; reimagining justice as a participatory and transformative process.
Issues Involved or Addressed
The INFORM Lab draws from criminology, sociology, gender studies, media studies, and criminal justice to explore how social harm, care, and accountability are produced and challenged in both digital and physical spaces. Our research uses transformative and participatory methods such as digital storytelling, photovoice, and community design—to understand how inequality operates and how more restorative, inclusive systems can be built.
Our areas of inquiry include:
Restorative Narratives and Digital Justice: Exploring how storytelling, digital posts, and creative expression can counter hate speech and deficit-based narratives while fostering dignity, empathy and accountability online.
Algorithmic Visibility and Identity: Exploring how algorithms shape identity by studying social media post patterns, visibility, and experiences of harm, and identifying ways to design more equitable digital systems.
Community-Centered Justice: Engaging with affected communities, youth, families, and incarcerated individuals to reimagine justice infrastructures rooted in healing rather than punishment.
Transformative Design and Abolition Futures: Studying how participatory design and research can help phase out harmful systems; like the carceral state; by strengthening infrastructures for mental health, education, and care.
- Language and Inclusion Online: Examining how people develop new, inclusive forms of communication to repair harm and build belonging across difference.
Methods and Tech
The INFORM Lab combines creative, humanistic, and data-informed approaches to explore how technology, language, and design shape experiences of harm and justice. Our work is grounded in participatory and transformative research methods, emphasizing collaboration with affected communities and critical engagement with digital infrastructures. Students will learn to use techniques such as digital ethnography, discourse analysis, participatory design, and visual storytelling to understand how online platforms reproduce social inequalities and how restorative practices can be reimagined through creative and community-led interventions.
Drawing from the humanities and social and behavioral sciences, we value critical inquiry, inclusiveness, and community exchange as essential components of ethical research. Students will experiment with story-based inquiry, data visualization, and other participatory visual methods to examine how digital narratives circulate and influence public understanding of harm. Other approaches include co-design workshops, restorative narrative practices, and media-based interventions that challenge deficit-based representations and promote care-centered communication. Together, these approaches equip students to bridge theory and practice—using research, design, and creative methods to build more equitable and restorative digital futures.
Academic Majors of Interest
Though open to all majors, we are most interested in students majoring in:
- Art
- Communication
Criminal Justice
Gender & Women’s Studies
Government and Public Policy
Information Science and Technology
Political Economy and Moral Science
Public & Applied Humanities
Psychology
Sociology
Social Work
Preferred Interests and Preparation
- Commitment to collaborative, research-driven work addressing real-world social issues
- Curiosity about how gender, technology, and justice intersect in shaping social harm and care
- Ability to think critically and reflectively about complex or sensitive topics
- Initiative and reliability in managing independent and team-based tasks
- Interest in developing both creative and analytical skills (e.g., storytelling, visual methods, data interpretation)
- Openness to interdisciplinary thinking and community-engaged learning
- Respectful communication and willingness to engage across differences
- Enthusiasm for contributing to projects that combine research, design, and social impact
- Some knowledge on NVivo and open to learning new software languages
Application Process
To express interest in this team, please complete the VIP Interest Form and select "INFORM Lab: Interdisciplinary Futures of Research and Method"
This team:
- Accepts students at the start of each semester
- Only recruits students for credit