People

I am an Associate Professor at the UBC School of Information, situated on unceded Musqueam territory. My research and teaching interests centre around how people seek and make use of information, and the tools and services that support those activities. Much of my prior research has focused on the design and use of search systems and access to information in organizational, government and everyday life contexts. With this project, I am shifting attention to the ways in which people find, use and cope with information in situations of crisis and change, focusing on the impacts of climate change in community settings. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from and with local collaborators and partners to build understanding of this complex situation and support action.

Working for an educational institution that occupies unceded Musqueam territory, each day challenges me to fulfill my responsibilities as a guest on their territory. Part of that work involves (re)imagining ways to define, value, and care for information, stepping away from the extractive logics and short-term thinking that led to our ongoing climate justice crisis. My research, teaching, and service are guided by the concepts of humility, reciprocity, and “imagining otherwise” (an aspiration generatively explored by Daniel Heath Justice).

I am honored to be a member of the Withy Design Collective and an advisor to the iStories research group. I am also a member of two UBC Research Clusters: Designing for People and Transformative Memory Network. I invite you to check out the scholarship in my publications section to learn about my research.

Dan Hackborn is a student who has been exploring the role of librarianship amid a changing climate since 2018, after a chance visit to the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Nation's Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre. Formally, his studies began in ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ-Edmonton, the unceded and ancestral territory of the pâhpâstêw Papaschase nation and, more broadly, on the homelands of the Nehiyaw Cree, the Niitsítapi Blackfoot Confederacy, the Dene, the Hohe Nakota Assiniboine, the Îyârhe Nakoda Sioux, the Nahkawininiwak Saulteaux, and the Otipemisiwak Métis, currently circumscribed by the political boundaries of Treaty 6, Métis Nation of Alberta Region 4, and the colonial jurisdictions of Alberta and Canada. 

As a descendent of Chinese Canadian immigrants and German Canadian settlers and, as an artist, he works from a sense of intercultural and interdisciplinary responsibility. Recognizing the role that his ancestors' desire to provide a better life for their children played in the erasure of Indigenous life and sovereignty, he is interested in collaborating on reparative climate justice for the benefit of future generations, as well as questions of maintaining and/or deaccessioning knowledges during the massive socioecological changes in our futures. 

Currently, he is pursuing these inquiries at the UBC School of Information on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm land, 100 km north of where his 公公’s father first stepped foot on Lək̓ʷəŋən land in 1881. He lives just down the way from where sʔi:ɬqəy̓ traveled up and down from the estuary to Camosun bog in ages past. He is determined to be here in a good way. 

I am a Dual Master's student at the iSchool, coming from a background in sociology and environmental justice, with ethnographic research experience relating to Indigeneity. My involvement in the world today primarily rests on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. With a working background in academic libraries and archives, I continue to question throughout my work and studies on who gets to be remembered and taught about in history, and how.

I am PhD candidate at the UBC School of Information, and interaction designer. My doctoral research attends to stories of more-than-human interdependencies and collaborations in urban [community] gardens, as I seek to understand how information and interaction design practice might be reoriented within a radically changing climate. Originally from Recife, a coastal city in the northeastern region of Brazil, I grew up among stories of resilience and practices that highlight the importance of empowering the communities we live with, and that nurture us. Today I continue my journey on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples of the Səlil̓wətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. I am grateful to the Coast Salish peoples for their generosity, care and other teachings they share with and on these lands.

Alexandra is a Master of Library and Information Studies student at the iSchool, University of British Columbia. She is interested in equitable information and memory practices, material culture, community informatics, and social & climate justice. She has previously worked in community-centred non-profit organizations and municipal climate policy in both Ontario and British Columbia.