FOUNDER

Moya Bailey is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. Her work focuses on marginalized groups’ use of digital media to promote social justice, and she is interested in how race, gender, and sexuality are represented in media and medicine. She is the digital alchemist for the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network and the Board President of Allied Media Projects, a Detroit-based movement media organization that supports an ever-growing network of activists and organizers.

She is a co-author of #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press, 2020) and is the author of Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance (New York University Press, 2021).

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Solome is a second year undergraduate student in the School of Communication pursuing Communication Studies with a minor in Sociological Research. On Northwestern’s campus, she is involved with For Members Only (NU’s Black Student Union) and BlackBoard magazine in addition to her work at the Block Museum of Art.

She is excited to explore the intersections of digital media, creative design, and social justice in research with the Digital Apothecary.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Ryan is a third-year student in the Rhetoric and Public Culture PhD program. He received his B.A. in Speech Communication from Ithaca College, followed by a M.A. at Syracuse University. He received the Top Master’s Thesis in Rhetoric award from the National Communication Association for an ethnographic research project on punk houses, art, and activism.

Ryan is principally interested in questions of togetherness, which he conceptualizes through critical discourses about love, kinship, community, and mass gatherings. He works in the traditions of rhetoric and cultural studies, but also draws on social network theory, collective dynamics and crowd theory, human geography, and GIS analytical methods.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Walker Brewer (they/them) is a second year in the Media, Technology and Society program working with Dr. TJ Billard. Their research interests broadly center on questions of power, identity, and communication systems within digital publics. They approach complex social issues with interdisciplinary research, examining the tensions that arise between more critical and applied approaches to activism and social justice. They hold a BA in Gender and Sexuality Studies and Art History from the University of Chicago, and an MA in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from George Washington University.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Victoria (V/they/she) is a Chicago-born and raised Chapine (Guatemalan) educator, scholar, and engineer. Currently, they’re a Joint PhD student in the Computer Science + Learning Sciences Program at Northwestern University. V’s research interests explore systemic issues within computer science education, centering the experiences of Black, Disabled, Indigenous, and Latine/x students. Most recently, their research has focused on teaching and learning accessibility as well as unpacking how ableism is codified in the policies, practices, and pedagogies used in college CS courses.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Jamie is a first year PhD student in the Media, Technology, and Society program, advised by Dr. AJ Christian. Broad interests include social media’s influence on identity formation, influencer cultures, algorithms, and the use of social media by creators within the intersections of queer and/or Black or brown identities.

Before pursuing a PhD, she earned her BS in Journalism from Middle Tennessee State University and MA in Communication from DePaul University. Creatively, she writes poetry based around mental health awareness/advocacy within the Black community.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Bailey is a fourth year PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Public Culture. Her research interests include trauma studies, transformative justice, feminist theory, critical health studies, and environmental justice. Her dissertation is a community-based participatory research project exploring transformative justice within anti-rape movements in Chicago.

She is also a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, a certified rape crisis counselor, and a partner of the Northwestern University Women's Center. She lives in Chicago with a rotating cast of furry, friendly dog-sitting clients.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Sahithi is a third-year undergraduate student at Northwestern majoring in Neuroscience and minoring in Science in Human Culture on the pre-med track. She is passionate about racial equity in healthcare as well as public health and advocacy and runs a start-up, Daily Dose News, aimed at providing global news to teens in digestible formats.

Outside of the Digital Apothecary, she is also a member of a Pharmacology Lab that studies genetic modifiers that influence the clinical severity of epilepsy.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Thayane is from Rio, Brazil and will start the Ph.D. program in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern this coming fall. She has a Bachelor's degree in Communication Studies (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and a Master's degree in Communication Technologies and Culture (Rio de Janeiro State University).

She loves to study how independent production, such as podcasts, and fan creations, like fanfics, may challenge stereotyped conceptions reinforced by traditional media regarding gender and sexuality issues. She believes this lab can open our hearts to listen to those who most need it and guide us to develop projects to mitigate prejudice and social inequality.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Yena is interested in studying the emerging forms and processes of networked social movement and the technological, political, and organizational conditions that enable or challenge the rise of such movements. Her research aims to better understand the changing logics of social movement at both levels of consciousness-raising and policymaking through an interdisciplinary and comparative lens. Her most recent research looks at the role of leadership in feminist networked social movement in South Korea.

She has previously written about feminist activist chatbot in Brazil and feminist K-pop fan activism on Twitter. Her methodological interests lean towards ethnography, digital ethnography, in-depth interviews, content analysis, and discourse analysis.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Lauren is first year undergraduate student in Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy. She is exploring design through a combination of learning sciences, data science, & human computer interaction.

Lauren got especially interested in the intersection of design, tech, and social change/equity after reading two books: Design Justice and Race After Technology. She is hoping to learn more about ethical design research, participatory design and code sign. She is currently working on a project focused on equitable design and technology.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Annika (she/her) is a PhD student in the Media, Technology, and Society program at Northwestern, where she is an active member of the Digital Apothecary and the NU Social Media Lab. Her research broadly focuses on self-presentation and self-disclosure online. Annika has conducted research projects examining how individuals navigate and manage stigma online, such as that associated with an LGBTQ+ identity, mental health, or a past criminal record surfacing in Google search results.

She primarily uses qualitative and ethnographic methods to investigate questions and solutions around these topics. Her dissertation work is centered on the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated population, exploring how they strategically manage their visibility on social media platforms. She is interested in the ways this community navigates societal stigmas and potential surveillance concerns through their online presence.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Arcade is a first year PhD student in the Northwestern School of Comminication’s Media, Technology and Society program. Their research interests center broadly around community building, activism, kin-making and care in digital space. They are particularly interested in exploring these topics in the context of trans, queer, indigenous and disabled communities.

Arcade uses qualitative methods in their work, such as ethnography, archival research, community-based and participatory methods.

RESEARCH ALCHEMIST

Andy Acosta is a Ph.D. Student in the Rhetoric, Media, and Publics program, advised by Dr. Moya Bailey. Broadly, his research interests include but are not limited to critical cultural media studies, Hip Hop studies, and mad studies influenced by activism. Andy has an M.A. in Communication Studies from California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB); a B.A. in Communication with a minor in Social Advocacy from Humboldt State University (HSU); and an A.A. in Communication Studies from Cabrillo College.

Andy’s been teaching since 2018 and has taught at various institutions, from Hispanic Servicing Institutions (e.g., CSUSB, Cabrillo, and San Bernardino Valley College) to prestigious R1 institutions, such as Northwestern. His passion for teaching began at a young age while his research interest developed at HSU, and he has presented at numerous international, national, and regional conferences. Currently, he is in the progress to get the lab trained in sexualized violence prevention.