Josh Guberman

About Me

I’m a PhD candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship recipient advised by Dr. Oliver Haimson and Dr. Silvia Lindtner at the University of Michigan School of Information.

My research is grounded in the literature and practices of science and technology studies, critical disability studies, and disability justice scholarship and activism. I use novel, collaborative, interpretivist methods to explore how human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers construct, research, and design for disability and disabled people. Through this work, my collaborators and I imagine and construct alternative understandings of and approaches to disability within HCI.

My current projects focus specifically on dominant discursive constructions of autism and autistic people within HCI and, in particular, how unsettling ableist narratives and working from alternative sets of assumptions and political commitments enables alternative and more liberatory forms of research that better support autistic knowledge, agency, and community.

Adjacent to my research, I work to address disability-related issues at the University of Michigan through my involvement with and/or leadership of various boards, committees, and initiatives on disability and diversity.

My other areas of experience include automated systems for detecting and responding to online-harassment, experimental social psychology, survey and experimental design, and Section 508 digital accessibility compliance.