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jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD

@jzong@hci.social

mastodon 4.7.3

researcher and visual artist. data representation, refusal, embodiment.

postdoc mit
berkman klein fellow harvard
incoming asst prof cu boulder info sci (starting F2025).
forbes 30 under 30.

anime, video games, taekwondo

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18 Posts

Joined October 29, 2022

website:

https://jonathanzong.com/

research group:

https://data-and-design.org/

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 29mo ago

hi! i will be presenting this work at #chi2024 next week.

i'm also pleased to share that i will be joining the faculty at
CU Boulder Information Science in 2025, and intend to recruit students soon.

please get in touch if you'd like to chat at the conference. thanks!

https://hci.social/@jzong/112169067403893251

hci.social

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 27mo ago

person having degree

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 24mo ago

interested in accessibility, visualization, and data ethics? i'm recruiting phd students to join the Data & Design Group at CU Boulder.

we're building a collaborative and inclusive space for people to grow into interdisciplinary researchers of technology and society.

https://data-and-design.org/recruiting

data-and-design.org

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 33mo ago

i, and two of my masters student mentees, each had first-author papers accepted at chi. i will have more to say about the projects later but for now i am simply very proud of my student collaborators and happy to be finishing my PhD on a high note ☺️

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 33mo ago

a new interview about my work on data refusal as design:

https://design.mit.edu/news/refusal-is-an-act-of-design-rethinking-data-ethics

design.mit.edu

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 23mo ago

how can participatory science improve safety and accountability in our digital environments?

last week, i helped host @natematias@social.coop at @bkc@social.cyber.harvard.edu and attended his public talk at MIT's data + feminism lab.

check out my post about the talk below:

https://data-and-design.org/blog/2024/10/25/improving-our-digital-environments/

data-and-design.org

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 36mo ago

i will be attending #AoIR2023 and #ASSETS2023 this year. it's my first time at both conferences, and i would love to meet you!

i'm interested in designing multi-modal systems for making data analysis more accessible to blind/low-vision users, and in systems and frameworks for consent and refusal in socio-technical systems.

you can read more about my research here: https://jonathanzong.com/research

jonathanzong.com

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 47mo ago

how can cross-disciplinary conversations on consent advance safe, equitable computing?

"Consent: A Research and Design Lens for Human-Computer Interaction"

#cscw2022 panel on 11/14 with @dougzytko@hci.social @imjane@hci.social @eredmil1@hci.social @amyadele@mastodon.lol Tomomi Tanaka

ask q's on discord!

link to session: https://programs.sigchi.org/cscw/2022/program/session/88400

programs.sigchi.org

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 37mo ago

a new spotlight article and video interview about my work in data visualization accessibility for MIT CSAIL:

https://cap.csail.mit.edu/engage/spotlights/jonathan-zong

cap.csail.mit.edu

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 35mo ago

Replying to

when people object to the collection and misuse of data by powerful actors, they say no in many ways: anything from individual opt out, building cooperatives and institutions, or toppling cameras mounted on lampposts feminist and indigenous scholars have advanced the idea of "refusal" as a practice of saying no to how data is collected or used, and of challenging the goals, processes, and authority of data collectors. refusal gives us language to conceptually unify these different practices

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 35mo ago

Replying to

i recently presented this work at #AoIR2023 and i'm excited to be able to share it more fully now. i started working on this paper in fall 2019, right before the pandemic hit. it means so much to me that i was able to see this through i'm looking for faculty jobs!

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 30mo ago

Replying to

Unlike many systems where a user must create non-visual representations by first specifying a visualization, Umwelt decouples the authoring process for each modality. For example, a user can explore the data using text and sound without needing to create a chart first (or at all).

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 30mo ago

Replying to

coming soon to #chi2024 https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00106

arxiv.org

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 35mo ago

Replying to

but just as new technologies continue to be invented, so do new ways to refuse. how can we both understand current practices of refusal, and also think about the characteristics of refusals yet to be imagined? in this paper, we argue that since refusal is a deliberate action aimed at reshaping a socio-technical system, it can be understood as an act of design. refusal, in the form of active non-participation in a system, is actually an important way to participate in a design process

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 35mo ago

Replying to

understanding refusal as design also means that we can apply the methods of design to refusal. we propose a framework with four facets of refusal, akin to design dimensions. they include autonomy, time, power, and cost together, these four facets describe a space of refusal that helps us describe existing cases of refusal in terms of each facet; evaluate cases of refusal by comparing their effectiveness along each facet; and imagine new forms of refusal in terms of their desired characteristics

jonathan zong 🍊🥄 PHD @jzong@hci.social

· 30mo ago

Replying to

Because its non-visual modalities do not depend on the visualization, Umwelt can express a broader set of non-visual representations. For example, here the sonification applies additional transformations (binning, averaging) that aren't present in the visualization.