My Research

My work sits at the intersection of media, technology, education, policy, justice, and data. Some of the key themes and projects include:

AI, EdTech, and Education Policy
- Examining social implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in education.
- Interests in how education is becoming more digital/datafied, how algorithms are being used in educational settings (e.g. to monitor students, predictive analytics), and what that means in terms of power, surveillance, and rights.
Platformization / Gig Work / Labour
- One of the recent research projects is “Gig Workers Deserve Better,” in collaboration with the BC Federation of Labour, Labour Studies at SFU, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. That project investigates the working conditions of ride‑hail and food delivery workers in British Columbia.
- This project explored the political economy of platform technologies (how platforms affect labour, power relations, corporate/state influence) more broadly.
Methods and Approaches - Marginalized voices
- Examines decolonial approaches to analyzing anti‑Asian racism, particularly in media and platform contexts.
- Interests in amplifying marginalized voices in research.
Critical Data Studies, Surveillance, Data & AI Ethics
- Examines questions of surveillance, data‑privacy, when education is mediated by data.
- Studies how policy and corporate/market forces shape EdTech adoption and the claims around it. For example, her work “Techno‑utopian dreams, techno‑political educations: Partnership and Refusal in the case of AI‑textbook” critiques how the state and corporate actors promote EdTech solutions as remedies for broader social problems.
Community‑Engaged Research Methods
- As a CERi (Community-Engaged Research institute) fellow, I am committed to research that engages communities (teachers, parents, students, workers) rather than only from a top‑down perspective.
- Uses qualitative methods such as interviews, ethnography, and participant observation.

Download CV

Research Projects

2024-Ongoing

Doctoral thesis:
"Technoutopian dreams, technopolitical education"

Touted as the world's first AI textbook, South Korean government announced an educational reform initiative to develop AI-textbooks and implement them in public schools by 2025.

In this case study, I examine the discursive framing that legitimizes and naturalizes the new connective milieu of dataveillance in educational settings.

Based on a classroom observation of a rural elementary school in South Korea as well as interviews with teachers, parents, AI-textbook developers and policymakers, I uncover the ways in which this ground-level friction is taking place and how these different stakeholders understand and redefine what counts as ‘good education’ in the era of artificial intelligence.

This project is an extension of an earlier study that is published in the International Journal of Communication, "The datafied schoool in the neoliberal era: Pandemic shifts in South Korean education policy"

Keywords: AI-textook, AIED, Datafied Education, Dataveillance, Datafied School, Educational Consumerism, Critical edtech studies

2023-current

The role of conflict and authenticity in the circulation of misinformation about biomanufactured products

Part of the $14.6M project funded by the Government of Canada through the Immuno Engineering and Biomanufacturing Hub, the BRIDGE Research Consortium is a national collaboration among leading social science and humanities scholars working across 11 Canadian and Australian universities. In this multi-streamed project, I investigate how users form, sustain, and share trust in algorithmically curated social media and conduct community-based research in British Columbia exploring “microspaces of trust.”

Keywords: Persona research, mis/dis/malinformation, algorithmic violence, trust formation online, COVID-19 vaccines

2023-2025

Tracing the Work and Lives of Korean-Canadian Keypunch Operators

Funded by Canada’s 150 research, this project explores the work and lives of female immigrant keypunch operators in 1970s-90s Canada, highlighting gendered and racialized labor in data entry under unequal working conditions.

Co-authored paper is currently under review in Catalyst: Feminism, Theory and Technoscience, contributing to feminist science and technology studies across disciplines including disability studies, digital media, public health, and more.

Keywords: Keypunch operation, gamification, mutliculturalism, ethnic silos, gender and labor, racialized tech labor

Apr-July, 2023

Gig Workers Deserve Better:

UP-BC – Understanding Precarity in BC

As a part of SSHRC-funded collaboration across 4 universities and 26

community organizations focused on labor precarity. Led research with 50 gig workers in the ride-hailing and food delivery sectors; designed and conducted a survey on platform-based working conditions. Drafted a paper based on those findings, which was later carried forward by the BC Federation of Labour.

What We Heard report available here.

Keywords: algorithmic injustice, gig work, gig economy, ride hailing and delivery sector, labor justice

2021-2022

COVID-19: A Communication Crisis – Ethics, Privacy, Inequalities

Conducted a multinational quantitative and qualitative research across 14 countries on the media representation of COVID-19 in relation to ethics, privacy, and inequalities. Read more.

Keywords: algorithmic injustice, gig work, gig economy, ride hailing and delivery sector, labor justice

dreamcasting.inc@gmail.com