About Me
My name is F. Ria Khan (they/he), and I am currently a Ph.D. student and graduate researcher at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the School of Information (UMSI). I am advised by Dr. Oliver L. Haimson and Dr. Tawanna R. Dillahunt, and I am both a member of the Community Research on Identity and Technology (CRIT) Lab and Social Innovations Group (SIG).
My research is in Human-Computer Interaction, where I focus on leveraging, negotiating, and empowering socio-technical participation and inclusion among intersectionally marginalized communities. I currently center queer and trans, BIPoC populations in the United States and explore disruptively playful, embodied, and participatory design practices for real impact that promotes community asset-building in computing contexts.
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From 2022-2024, I held teaching and research assistant positions at the University of California, Irvine. I also previously earned a M.S. from the University of Colorado, Boulder at the ATLAS Institute in Creative Technologies and Design (2018-2020). My background is in material fabrication, creative technologies, critical theory/design, game design, UI/UX, and fine arts practices.
My research interests are in developing alternative technologies and futures that support the complexities of intersectionally marginalized communities in their aspirations and material realities within our technology-saturated world. I believe it is vital to understand the ambivalent and entwined relationships between race, gender, sexuality, and ableism, and how these relationships relate to white, settler-colonist techno-hegemony, (or oppressive, systemic practices and ideologies within technology and computing), which suppress/erase inclusive innovation and cultural production.
Further, my work interrogates the role of technology and our positionality as researchers and designers—veering away from futurist and techno-solutionist mindsets to delegate how we can integrate perspectives or even divest from techno-hegemonies for marginalized communities to reclaim their power.
However, I aim to specifically center embodiment as well as play and expression in my design approaches. Of the mechanisms in which harmful techno-hegemonies are sustained, disconnecting us from our embodied connections is a critical one my work prioritizes. I define this mechanism as "techno-disembodiments" as well as an overarching and enduring phenomena in technology—whether it's through the flattening of gender expression in AI face filters, unaccommodating interfaces for differently abled individuals, or surveillance of black and brown bodies.
Here, I find play and expression as a radical form factor for resistance against techno-disembodiments. Play has a uniquely embodied power to provide accessibility through levity to persuade and provoke critical thinking of different perspectives, and to empower individuals through the agency of expression. Further, to be disruptive in playfulness and expression is to disrupt hegemonies that forefronts embodied interaction and connection.
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All in all, at the core of my research goals is to demystify and disseminate impactful design approaches for disruptive play and enable better, safer, and intersectional community engagement in technology and computing. I ultimately hope to promote higher, embodied understandings of each other and ourselves in this techno society.