Rayvon Fouché
DIRECTOR OF HAT LAB
Associate Dean for Graduate Education, School of Communication
Professor, Communications Studies, School of Communication
Professor, Journalism, Medill School of Journalism, Media & Integrated Marketing Communications
Hi, I’m Ray Fouché! I established the HAT Lab to bring together researchers from diverse intellectual foundations to explore and understand key issues regarding the politics of science and technology as they relate to the past, present, and future of humanity. My major publications includes Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power (University of Minnesota Press, 2004), Technology Studies (Sage Publications, 2008), the 4th Edition of the Handbook of Science & Technology Studies (MIT Press, 2016), Game Changer: The Technoscientific Revolution in Sports (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), and Technoskepticism: Between Possibility and Refusal (Stanford University Press, 2025). My interests lie in understanding how we can utilize collective intelligence to leverage individual expertise and answer questions that demand input from multiple intellectual domains. To this end, my current work focuses on collaborative projects with the next generation of scholars producing transformative work.
At Northwestern, I primarily work with graduate students in the Media, Technology, and Society (MTS) and the Rhetoric, Media, and Publics (RMP) programs, and am a member of the Science in Human Culture Program.
When I’m not thinking about questions that move me (and others), I like to spend time in the Laurentian Mixed Forest Province or skiing wherever I can find fresh snow. When I was much younger, I competed in the 1992 Olympic cycling trials. I’m not nearly as fast now, but do enjoy working up a sweat on a fat tire bike.
RESEARCH PARTNERS
Aaron Dial
Assistant Professor, Colgate University
Departments of Film & Media Studies and Africana and Latin American Studies
Hey all, I’m Aaron! I’m a big-time sneakerhead with over 60 pairs of kicks in my collection. But shoes aren’t the only things running through my mind. When I’m not working on my latest book or research project, you can catch me bumping the latest music release (I’m learning to DJ!), watching some dope anime, or obsessing over NBA basketball. I love sitting down and getting to know people, especially over a nice glass of bourbon.
As an Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies and Africana & Latin American Studies at Colgate University, my research focuses on affective labor, popular culture, urban space and temporal flows, and the nexus between sports, science, and technology. Currently, I am working on my first monograph, Deadstock, A Philosophy of Sneakers in the Afterlife of Black Bodies, which articulates the intimate and undiscussed connections between sneakers as material objects and Black bodies. This project excavates sneakers from the strict confines of culture and fashion, asserting their existence as an object wherein bodies act and that acts upon bodies and spaces. Furthermore, this project hones the theoretical position that sneakers exist first and foremost as literal extensions of Black bodies, both sporting and cultural. One of Deadstock’s chapters, called “Hangtime Melancholia,” which explores the notion of hangtime, the physics-defying fantasy of a dunker’s trajectory, to its limit to consider the undiscussed connections in the American photographic pastimes of lynching and dunk photography was published in Cultural Studies.
Aria Halliday
Associate Professor, University of Kentucky
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and Program in African American and Africana Studies
Hi, I'm Aria S. Halliday, associate professor at the University of Kentucky. While research is my bread and butter, I ensure that actual great food is always close at hand. I love trying out new restaurants, experiencing diverse cuisines, and tending to my own garden while listening to the newest hip-hop album released.
As a researcher, I have been recognized as an award-winning author who specializes in the study of cultural constructions of black girlhood and womanhood in material, visual, and digital culture in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. I have published research in Cultural Studies, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Girlhood Studies, Palimpsest, SOULS, and forthcoming in Women, Gender, and Families of Color. I also authored Buy Black: How Black Women Transformed US Pop Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2022), Black Girls and How We Fail Them (UNC Press, 2025), and was the editor of The Black Girlhood Studies Collection (Women’s Press, 2019). Throughout my career, I have been recognized as an Institute for Citizens and Scholars Career Enhancement Fellow (2020-2021), a Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin (2022-2023), and a 2021 Stuart Hall Foundation x Cultural Studies Award winner for my article “Twerk Sumn!: Theorizing Black Girl Epistemology in the Body.” Currently, I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and program in African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky working on a new project investigating Black Feminists freedom and Electric Vehicles.
Melvin Villaver
Assistant Professor, Clemson University
Departments of Performing Arts (Audio Technology) and Interdisciplinary Studies (Global Black Studies)
Melvin Earl Villaver, Jr., Ph.D., is an expert in Hip Hop's cultural origins and the role of African American artists in music history. Since Fall 2023, he has been an assistant professor at Clemson University, blending practical skills in music production with scholarship.
Driven by a commitment to celebrating Black music, Villaver's research focuses on Blues Epistemology and Black musicians' artistry. He explores how modern trends elevate Hip Hop and aims to preserve these cultural narratives. His goal is to highlight Black music's role in history and inspire future scholars and musicians.
GRADUATE STUDENT COLLABORATORS
Bright Baffour Antwi
Ph.D. Candidate, University of South-Eastern Norway
Department of Humanities, Cultural, and Educational Sciences
Hi, I'm Bright. I am a 5th year PhD candidate in the Sports Department at the University of South-Eastern Norway. When I am not pretending to be buried in research duties, I am usually at home minding my business. Fun fact: I work as a football agent too!
As a PhD candidate in the final year of my program at the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), my research focuses on the use of self-tracking technologies in Ghanaian fitness spaces. This interest has led me to explore the near-exclusive emphasis on quantification at the expense of qualitative elements of fitness practices. My soon-to-be-published study is based on six months of fieldwork in Ghana, with extensive primary-source data in the form of interviews, field notes, and participant observation. Beyond my graduate work, I am also a member of the Norwegian Research School on Digitalisation, Culture and Society and the USN lead on the Nordplus project on Digitalisation in the Coaching Process across Nordic-Baltic countries.
Jonathan Givan
Ph.D. Candidate, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute
Department of Science and Technology Studies
Hi, I am Jonathan Givan, a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in Science and Technology Studies at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute from Chelsea, Alabama. When I am not dodging responsibilities or forgetting to submit paperwork, you can catch me bouldering at my local climbing gyms or obsessing over my well-seasoned cast iron.
As a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at RPI and a researcher in the HAT Lab at Northwestern, I focus on the relationship between music production, knowledge production, and cultural studies. My research looks at the Akai Midi Production Center and how its innovative adoption by Black Hip Hop producers reframed popular conceptions around the technology. Using mixed methods research, I study the history of the MPC within Hip Hop, the individuals and communities that solidified its popularity, and how corporate entities responded to the success of the MPC within Black music making. The ultimate goals of my research are to make accessible resources that display the innovative and diverse thought processes behind Hip Hop music and to help develop more inclusive and accessible spaces for communal music education.
June Mia Macon
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois Chicago
Department of Communications
Annyeong! I'm June Mia, a PhD Candidate at the University of Illinois, Chicago. I joined the HAT Lab in the summer of 2024. When I'm not working on my dissertation, following Twitch DJs, or reading about techno culture, I am busy being a mom of two boys.
As a Ph.D. Candidate in Communication at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) my research investigates streaming and social networking sites, participatory platforms, and the intersections of gender, race, and policy. In 2021, I published a book chapter titled "DJ’s Gig: Affective Hip Hop Culture and Affordances of Participatory Platforms during a Global Pandemic" in Sustaining Black Music and Culture during COVID-19 #Verzuz and Club Quarantine, edited by Dr. Niya Pickett Miller. Currently, my dissertation explores the affordances of Twitch.tv, focusing on Hip Hop DJs, cultural participation, and labor by investigating how Hip Hop DJs' tapped into cultural practices to re-imagine and appropriate a platform that was intended for gamers. My research utilizes a mixed-method approach of critical technocultural discourse analysis, participant observations, and interviews to examine the platform and the DJs. Ultimately, my interest is in understanding digital counter-cultures and communities and the way in which they form and thrive on digital platforms.
Karl Bullock
Ph.D. Candidate, Northwestern University
Rhetoric, Media, and Publics
Hello, I’m Karl, a PhD candidate in Rhetoric, Media, and Publics housed in the Department of Communication Studies. I am a recipient of the Black Metropolis Graduate Assistantship, which is designed to increase capacity at Chicagoland’s Black archives and support projects that preserve and amplify Black histories and legacies. I’ve helped inventory, digitize, and assess Rebuild Foundation’s collections on the South Side of Chicago.
My research focuses on the sports arena as a protest site for Black athletes in America. I am interested in the strategies utilized by Black athletes, historically and in the present, to engage in social and political movements to articulate the reclamation of their humanity, fight for civil liberties, and as a form of civic engagement.
Catalina Farías
Ph.D. Student, Northwestern University
Media, Technology, and Society
I’m Catalina, a 3rd-year Ph.D. student in Communication Studies at Northwestern. Outside of research, I enjoy binge-watching TV, painting, walking by the lake, and talking with my family in Chile. I strive to conduct research that benefits marginalized communities and creates tangible change.
As a Ph.D. student in Media, Technology, and Society at Northwestern University my research centers on the role of media technologies in the lives of marginalized and racialized communities. Specifically, I focus on uncovering the reasons these communities engage with technology, how they perceive it, and the intricate dynamics of their online interactions. I use a mixed-method research approach to reveal the intricate ways in which these groups access, use, and (re)appropriate technologies. My work aims to shed light on the importance of digital inclusion and the empowerment of underrepresented voices in the media technologies landscape with the ultimate goal of influencing technology design and policy to better serve and represent marginalized communities.
Genius Amaraizu
Ph.D. Student, Northwestern University
Rhetoric, Media, and Publics
Hey, this is Genius Amaraizu, 1st year PhD researcher in the HAT lab at Northwestern. When you don't find me engaged in lab research, look outside, I'm making some videos for YouTube and other social media, or hanging out with friends, or just watching some documentaries.
As a Ph.D. researcher in the HAT lab at Northwestern University my research focuses on Technoculture; working between digital humanities’ and digital cultures’ intersection with contemporary democracy and developmental practices, especially as it concerns media, migration and social justice. My research primarily investigates how digital technologies are embraced as solutions within the human migration ecosystem, and captures the intersectional relatedness of marginalization and under-representation with technological developments, as well as scientific chauvinism.
Srishti Chatterjee
Ph.D. Student, Northwestern University
Rhetoric, Media, and Publics
Hi! I'm Srish, a first year PhD student in Rhetorics, Media, and Publics at the Department of Communications at Northwestern U, and a Public Humanities Fellow with the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities. I'm an experienced and awarded community justice advocate in gender, racial, and economic justice -- having spent about 10 years working in LGBTQIA+ justice and union movements across India and Australia.
My current research looks at the relationship of data visualization with public justice advocacy. I am working on tracing a genealogy of interactive maps and their use in political communication, particularly looking at maps created as acts of protest. I have published and presented work on the politics of information, education unionism, trans and gender diverse justice, and equity in technology. Most recently, I published a book chapter titled 'Misgendering and Assuming Gender while working with Low-Resource Language' with Sourojit Ghosh, in Routledge's Series of Translation and Interpreting Studies, where we also have upcoming work in the pedagogies of care in the use of machine learning.
When I'm not working, I cook a lot of Bengali food, especially a pretty top-tier khichuri.
UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHERS
Leila Dhawan
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Northwestern University
Communication Studies
Hi! I'm Leila Dhawan, a sophomore and researcher in the HAT lab at Northwestern. When I'm not researching, I'm probably stopping a stranger to pet their dog or waiting in line for coffee. You can tell I'm from New Jersey because I walk fast and often complain about the bagels in Chicago. I'm involved in various campus initiatives, like marketing for the Northwestern Dance Marathon and the UNITY fashion show. I also work as a graphic designer and freelance writer for North by Northwestern Magazine and as a graphic designer for Northwestern Admissions.
Right now, I'm researching technology refusal with Professor Fouché. This topic intrigues me because of its huge impact on society and how it affects our self-perception. By understanding why some people push back against new technologies, I hope to gain insights into my own experiences and the broader societal effects. This research will help me in my future career in PR, marketing, and graphic design, giving me a unique perspective on human behavior. My ultimate goal is to graduate from Northwestern with a dual degree in Communications and Psychology, and then pursue an MBA. I love working with people and believe that understanding them is key to being effective and empathetic in my work. I'm passionate about appreciating and leveraging the unique qualities of individuals to enhance my work and build meaningful connections.
Chloe Sharpe
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Northwestern University
Communication Studies
Hi, my name is Chloe Sharpe! I’m a first-year undergraduate research assistant in the HAT lab at Northwestern where I collaborate with Aria Halliday and Rayvon Fouché on The Black Woman’s Guide to Electric Vehicles project. Outside of research, you can find me diving head-first into the deep end… literally! Despite my fear of heights, I have been a competitive diver for 8 years!
As a first-year undergraduate research assistant in the HAT lab at Northwestern University, my research delves into the prerequisites for building a more equitable society. I’m driven by a deep interest in sustainable solutions and equity in technology which makes my work with Dr. Aria Halliday and Dr. Fouché, on Black Feminists freedom and Electric Vehicle usage and culture not only meaningful but also deeply fulfilling. I am committed to exploring how technology can be harnessed to create a more just and inclusive world, a mission that shapes both my current research and my future career aspirations.
Benjamin Wajerski
Undergraduate Research Assistant, Northwestern University
Communication Studies
Hello! My name is Ben Wajerski and I am a sophomore pursuing a degree in Communication Studies at Northwestern University. I am working with Dr. Rayvon Fouché, Dr. Aaron Dial, and Karl Bullock, to better understand the current and evolving landscape of Name Image and Likeness in college athletics. Sports have long been a pillar in my life and although I no longer compete at the varsity level, the lessons it has taught me will endure. I continue to stay active through bike rides and jogs and am an avid fan of all professional sports.
Through Re-monetizing College Athletes: The Social Politics of Name, Image, and Likeness, we hope to situate NIL deals within the context of what it means to be a college athlete. Furthermore, we aim to facilitate discussion about the shifting balance between athlete and university as well as the reshuffling of the collegiate hierarchy. Much has changed during the early stages of this new era as the line between student and professional athlete continues to blur; it is our goal to project how this phenomenon will develop over the coming years.