Jennifer Gabrys is Chair in Media, Culture and Environment in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She was previously Professor in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she is currently an honorary Visiting Professor. She also leads the Citizen Sense and AirKit projects, which have received funding through an ERC Starting Grant (2013-2018) and ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2019-2020).
Her research investigates the intersection of social practices, environments and communication technologies through theoretical and practice-based work. Projects within this area include, Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics (University of Michigan Press, 2011); Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet (University of Minnesota Press, 2016); and How to Do Things with Sensors (University of Minnesota Press Forerunners series, 2019).
Gabrys has been a Co-Investigator on the RCUK Energy Programme and ESRC-funded project, “Sustainability Invention and Energy Demand Reduction: Co-designing Communities and Practice.” This study, which was a collaboration with Mike Michael, Bill Gaver and the Interaction Research Studio, investigated how new technologies might be designed to engage communities in reducing energy consumption.
Selected Publications
(for a full list of Citizen Sense publications, see Publications)
- Gabrys, Jennifer. Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “A Cosmopolitics of Energy: Diverging Materialities and Hesitating Practices.” Environment and Planning A 46, no. 9 (2014), 2095-2109; DOI: 10.1068/a468.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Programming Environments: Environmentality and Citizen Sensing in the Smart City.” In the special issue, “A New Apparatus: Technology, Government, and the Resilient City,” edited by Bruce Braun and Stephanie Wakefield. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32, no. 1 (2014), 30-48; DOI: 10.1068/d16812.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Becoming Urban: Sitework from a Moss-Eye View.” Environment and Planning A 44, issue 12 (2012): 2922-2939; DOI: 10.1068/a44671.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Sensing an Experimental Forest: Processing Environments and Distributing Relations.” Computational Culture, issue 2 (2012), http://computationalculture.net/article/sensing-an-experimental-forest-processing-environments-and-distributing-relations.
- Gabrys, Jennifer, and Kathryn Yusoff. “Arts, Sciences and Climate Change: Practices and Politics at the Threshold.” Science as Culture 21, issue 1 (2012; first published online 14 April 2011, iFirst): 1-24; DOI: 10.1080/ 09505431.2010.550139.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Atmospheres of Communication.” In The Wireless Spectrum: The Politics, Practices and Poetics of Mobile Technologies, edited by Barbara Crow, Michael Longford and Kim Sawchuk, pp. 46-59. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Telepathically Urban.” In Circulation and the City: Essays on Urban Culture, edited by Alexandra Boutros and Will Straw, pp. 48-63. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2010.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Sink: The Dirt of Systems.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27, no. 4 (2009): 666-681; DOI: 10.1068/d5708.
- Gabrys, Jennifer. “Automatic Sensation: Environmental Sensors in the Digital City.” In “Senses and the City,” special edition of The Senses and Society, edited by Mags Adams and Simon Guy 2, no. 2 (2007): 189-200; DOI: 10.2752/174589307X203083.