Lydia Stamato is a postdoctoral human-centered computing research fellow at Berea College, advised by Dr. Jasmine Jones. Lydia completed a PhD in the Human-Centered Computing program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she was a graduate research assistant in the Designing pARticipatory futurEs (DARE) lab advised by Dr. Foad Hamidi. 

~ I am on the job market ~

My work seeks to understand how people working from a point of community-led expertise (e.g., DIY biologists, local historians, community-engaged artists, social and environmental justice organizers) use (and don't use) digital technology to advance their objectives. I also explore how everyday practices and values impact upon technology use and design. As a postdoc researcher, I am focused on developing a practice of public scholarship while exploring and articulating a research and teaching agenda. Our current research explores the intersection of memory and digital technology using design research and participatory design methodologies.

My dissertation drew on ethnography in a community biology laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland and interviews with environmental justice (EJ) organizers in Baltimore and across North America to assess how liminal spaces act as interfaces between technical expertise and the public. My peer reviewed publications have impacted audiences in human-computer interaction, sustainable computing, learning science, and public health. 

Previously, I was an English teacher at a post-secondary vocational school for people with disabilities in Guangzhou, China, after which I studied Child and Adolescent Health and Development at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I have an amateur interest in web development and design, enlivened by three years as the wiki subteam mentor for the East Coast BioCrew high school iGEM team based at the Baltimore Underground Science Space.