I have many interests. Some interests relate to society's concerns; other interests are motives of my own. In all my ongoing projects, I believe, contain elements of both.

Modding Communities
Modding communities are communities of modders--end users who make alterations of commercial hardware and software (Kow and Nardi, 2009). Digital artifacts of the Internet are easily modifiable; and this is often done by altering part of the source code. Content and video productions are other, less programming intensive, formats of modding. Giving way is the industrial era of large corporations organizing massive capital and labor for production; Internet labor can be managed cheaply by small teams and individuals. However, historical apparatuses of the industrial era: the product development methods, legal frameworks, and formats of wealth distribution, are causing contradictions when used on the modding communities. I am interested in how modding communities get integrate into our society and take on more important roles.

Culture of China and the U.S. Internet
China, a rapidly rising economic power, commands the world's largest population of netizens. The U.S. lies second just behind China. Understanding the distinctiveness of both cultures is necessary to understand Internet's diversity and evolution. Culture is comprised of historically evolved artifacts, practices, and ethical systems (Kow and Nardi, 2009). These elements affect collaboration within each community and its distinct innovative trajectory. A deeper understanding, in China and the U.S., of the assemblage and roles of these elements remains in the calling. A systematic and progressive comparison of both countries will expand understanding of the Internet future.

Ethnography, Network Analysis, Visualization, and Real World Problems
Ethnographic findings are often colored by systematic biases due to pre-conceived cultural notions. New notions of anthropological theories are emerging. They aimed at confirming ethnographic observations not by local judgments, but through formalized representations. One of this type of ethnography analysis comes from Social Network Analysis. I believed that formalism would help strengthen ethnography as a practical and powerful research methodology.

Human Computer Interaction and Ethnography
Where I did my Masters, HCI is a discipline that performs experiments with tight control and statistical analysis (read Chris Wickens). Where I am doing my PhD, HCI is a discipline that emphasizes context and ethnographic approaches (read Lucy Suchman). Both approaches relied on different theoretical and methodological frameworks. Both were useful and unsatisfactory in their own ways. Experimental approach is precise but sometimes missed the real conditions "in the wild." Contextual approach is accurate but often unable to specify design impact and extent. HCI in practice would benefit from the application of both methods, and as such calls for search for a manner of union of both schools in real design problems.