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.

Governance of Modding Community

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. How can the corporations govern the new crops of productive end users? How do we ensure mutually beneficial relationships?

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 by global relevance. I am interested in furthering the method by the use of ethnographic fieldwork with mathematical representations, such as Social Network Analysis and visualizations. I believed that the union of both methods by concrete real world problems will rekinder the relevance of anthropology to the research community.

Activity Theory and Networked Communities

Communities of the Internet rely on inflow of knowledge and resources from interconnected communities to sustain its relevance. Communities that interconnect a modding community, for example, include users, corporations, and the government. Each community is distinctively defined by systems of practices, artifacts, ethics, and functions. For example, the corporation generates wealth and require professionalism and law to support this goal; the users, on the other hand, are more interested in a better product. Flow of information and resource across communities are often beneficial, but at times result in contradictions. I am interested in framing these flows, contradictions, and mitigation strategies as an extension to Activity Theory.

Human Computer Interaction Experimental Methods and Ethnographic Framework
HCI where I did my Masters is a discipline that performs experiments with tight control and statistical analysis (read Chris Wickens). HCI where I am doing my PhD 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.