Judith Donath
{{short description|American computer scientist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2014}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Judith Donath
|image = Judith Donath img 2760-b.jpg
|image_size = 162
|caption = Judith Donath giving a talk at the EPFL, on June 22, 2009
|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1962|05|07}}
|death_date =
|birth_place =
|death_place =
|residence =
|nationality = American
|religion =
|field = Media Arts, Human–computer interaction, History
|work_institution = MIT
|alma_mater = MIT
Yale University
|doctoral_advisor = Andrew B. Lippman
|doctoral_students = {{unbulleted list|Karrie Karahalios|Fernanda Viégas}}
|known_for = Educational software designer and builder, Social media research, Virtual world architect
|prizes =
|footnotes =
|thesis_title = Inhabiting the virtual city: The design of social environments for electronic communities
|thesis_year = 1997
|thesis_url = http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/judith/Thesis/Acknowledge.frame.html
}}
Judith Stefania Donath (born May 7, 1962) is an American computer scientist who is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center,{{cite web|title=Judith Donath|url=http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/|work=The Berkman Center for Internet and Society|publisher=Harvard University|accessdate=February 13, 2011}}{{cite book|author1=Marcus Foth|author2=Laura Forlano|author3=Christine Satchell|author4=Martin Gibbs|title=From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen: Urban Informatics, Social Media, Ubiquitous Computing, and Mobile Technology to Support Citizen Engagement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pT-PyZEoVykC&pg=PA499|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=December 21, 2011|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-01651-3|page=499}}{{cite web|title=Judith Stefania Donath CV|url=http://smg.media.mit.edu/People/Judith/MIT.CV.pdf|accessdate=November 5, 2012}} and the founder of the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab.{{cite web|url=http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/judith/oldhomepage.html|title=Judith Donath|first=Judith|last=Donath|website=smg.media.mit.edu}}{{cite web|url=http://smg.media.mit.edu|title=Sociable Media Group - MIT Media Lab|first=Francis|last=Lam|website=smg.media.mit.edu}} She has written papers on various aspects of the Internet and its social impact, such as Internet society and community, interfaces, virtual identity issues, and other forms of collaboration that have become manifest with the advent of connected computing.
Her research work includes issues centered on "identity and deception in online communities" and the creation of multiple virtual personae.{{cite book|author=Marc A. Smith|title=Communities in Cyberspace|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NxAuOTt9cvIC&pg=PA9|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=February 10, 1999|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-19140-1|page=9}}{{cite book|author=Paul Basu|title=Highland Homecomings Genealogy and Heritage Tourism in the Scottish Diaspora|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CVj5BUi97Y8C&pg=PA94|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=April 15, 2006|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-84472-128-3|page=94}} In 1999 she researched the presence of deception in the online identities of Usenet users,{{cite book|author1=Gunnar Liestøl|author2=Andrew Morrison|author3=Terje Rasmussen|title=Digital Media Revisited: Theoretical and Conceptual Innovations in Digital Domains|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O6o5Yx-lEIIC&pg=PA538|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=September 1, 2004|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-62192-2|page=538}}{{cite book|author=Mark Poster|title=Information Please: Culture and Politics in the Age of Digital Machines|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ut5WAbkxLi4C&pg=PA156|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=August 9, 2006|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3839-0|page=156}} as well as the reconstruction of the personality of an individual using data gathered from both online and offline encounters.{{cite book|author=Natasha Whiteman|title=Undoing Ethics: Rethinking Practice in Online Research|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FI-4j7uV310C&pg=PA103|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=January 6, 2012|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4614-1826-9|page=103}}
Career
Donath obtained her bachelor's degree in history from Yale and her master's and Ph.D. degrees in media arts and sciences from MIT. Her work includes the design and development of educational software and experimental media.
On October 10, 1995, while still a Ph.D. candidate at MIT, she helped organize a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the MIT Media Lab by conceiving a mass online collaboration project which featured the construction of a large website by worldwide contributors.{{cite book|author=Carl Malamud|title=A World's Fair for the Global Village|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2ACtZvZhvWcC&pg=PA43|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=August 8, 1997|publisher=Carl Malamud|isbn=978-0-262-13338-8|page=43}} The event was named A Day in the Life of Cyberspace and is an early example of mass collaboration on the Internet.{{cite web|title=Judith Donath on Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium|url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/scs2004/speakers.aspx|publisher=Microsoft Corporation|accessdate=November 5, 2012}}
Her pioneering work includes the first postcard service, named The Electric Postcard, and the first interactive art show, titled Portraits in Cyberspace.
Her recent work includes directing the exhibit Id/Entity which includes collaborative works on the subject of the transformation of portraiture through the use of modern computer technology.
In her 2000 book Being Real, Donath explores the problems of cognition arising from the online behavioral dynamics of the interaction between human and possibly automated avatars in a virtual world.{{cite book|author1=Sabine Payr|author2=Robert Trappl|title=Agent Culture: Human-agent interaction in A Multicultural World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l0yx7Mottl8C&pg=PR17|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=June 11, 2004|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-8058-4808-3|page=17}}
She has investigated the effect of online social media on society as regards the public display of the social interconnections between the members of the online communities as a sort of "Public Displays of Connection".{{cite book|author=Paola Antonelli|title=Design and the Elastic Mind|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u1kxPGb2hrQC&pg=PA161|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=March 1, 2008|publisher=The Museum of Modern Art|isbn=978-0-87070-732-2|page=161}}{{cite journal|last=Donath|first=J|author2=d boyd|title=Public displays of connection|journal=BT Technology Journal|date=October 2004|volume= 22|issue= 4|pages=71–82|url=http://smg.media.mit.edu/papers/Donath/PublicDisplays.pdf |accessdate=November 4, 2012|doi=10.1023/B:BTTJ.0000047585.06264.cc|s2cid=14502590}} Her work on sociable media has applications in the field of semiotics.{{cite book|author=Donald A. Norman|title=Living with Complexity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BCrYKuwdsCAC&pg=PA269|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=October 31, 2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-01486-1|page=269}}
On the subject of telerobotics, Donath argues that the remote manipulation afforded by the discipline may act as a desensitizing agent because the identity and human characteristics of the remote subjects of the telerobotic operation remain unseen by the human teleoperator of the robot.{{cite book|author=Ken Goldberg|title=The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zHfdepm-VOUC&pg=PA25-IA1|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=October 1, 2001|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-57154-8|page=25}} She has also researched the ethnography of online communities.{{cite book|author=Tom Boellstorff|title=Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RtOoY2j6SFwC&pg=PA67|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=April 7, 2010|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-14627-0|page=67}}
Her work includes the application of architectural principles to the design of the social interaction environment of online communities in a kind of virtual city.{{cite book|author=Richard A. Bartle|title=Designing Virtual Worlds|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z3VP7MYKqaIC&pg=PA484|accessdate=November 3, 2012|year=2004|publisher=New Riders|isbn=978-0-13-101816-7|page=484}}
She has investigated best practices for online communication and their relation to issues of embodiment, gender, sexuality and identity.{{cite book|author1=Mia Consalvo|author2=Charles Ess|title=The Handbook of Internet Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3CakiQW_GVAC&pg=PA277|accessdate=November 4, 2012|date=May 3, 2011|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4051-8588-2|pages=277–278}}
Donath has explored the use of artificial emotions in avatars and their potential use in online advertising.{{cite book|author=Mark Stephen Meadows|title=I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ut22ESg2iAC&pg=PT152|accessdate=November 3, 2012|date=December 28, 2007|publisher=New Riders|isbn=978-0-321-53339-5|page=152}} She predicts that artificial avatars will possess "suites of emotions" comparable to an emotional wardrobe, from which they can pick the emotion they need to "wear", depending on the circumstances. That way they can be used in advertising campaigns to target their intended audience more effectively.
In her essay "Mediated Faces" she analyzes the role of facial representation and interpretation in an online communication environment, suggesting that there are wider possibilities for online facial representation through the use of computer-enhanced environments than a simple linear pictorial representation of the human face.{{cite book|author=Kelly Gates|title=Our Biometric Future: Facial Recognition Technology and the Culture of Surveillance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rsirLTncnmkC&pg=PT264|accessdate=November 4, 2012|date=February 23, 2011|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-3209-0|pages=264–265}}
She has compared the anonymity of online flaming to the anonymity of vandalizing in real life.{{cite book|title=U.S. News & World Report|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eecpAQAAIAAJ|accessdate=November 4, 2012|year=2007|publisher=U.S. News Publishing Corporation}}{{cite news|last=Wilson|first=Chris|title=Taming Internet Flamers and Attracting Adults to Boot New user sites find ways to add civility to the cacophony|url=https://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070610/18flaming.htm|accessdate=November 4, 2012|newspaper=U.S. News & World Report|date=June 10, 2007|quote="The anonymity [of flaming] is the same as anonymity of vandalizing in real life," says Judith Donath, an associate professor at the Media Laboratory at MIT. The Net just makes it easier to do."|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613170439/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070610/18flaming.htm|archivedate=June 13, 2007}}
Donath spoke on identity, anonymity, and the wiki at the August 2006 Wikimania conference.{{cite web|url=http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proceedings:JD1|title=Proceedings:JD1 - Wikimania|website=wikimania2006.wikimedia.org}} She returned as Fellow of Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.{{cite web | url=https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/newsroom/2013_2014_community | title=Berkman Center Announces 2013-2014 Community | publisher=Berkman Center for Internet & Society | date=July 8, 2013 | accessdate=July 8, 2013}}
Publications (A selection)
- Donath, Judith: Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community. In M. Smith and P. Kollock (eds.) Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge, 1998
- Fernanda Viégas, Judith Donath: Chat Circles. ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), 1999
- Judith Donath, Karrie Karahalios, Fernanda Viégas: Persistent Conversations. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 4 (4), 1999
- Donath, Judith: Being Real. In (K. Goldberg, ed.) The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000
- Donath, Judith: 1964 Ford Falcon. In (Turkle, S., Ed) Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007
- The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online (The MIT Press), 2014, ISBN 978-0262027014
References
{{Reflist|2}}
External links
{{Commons category|Judith Donath}}
- [http://vivatropolis.org/judith/ Judith Donath's homepage]
- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE_P7pe2il0 Signals, Truth, and Design], YouTube video of Donath "Google Tech Talk"
- {{Twitter}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donath, Judith}}
Category:American computer scientists
Category:Human–computer interaction researchers
Category:American women computer scientists