Joan Greenbaum / Environmental Psychology

Joan Greenbaum has dabbled with technology since getting hooked on programming in the early mainframe computer days. Her research and work focuses on issues of interactive design and embodied action. Currently she is studying what she calls ‘digital squatters’—people who use cafes as workplaces, creating public privacy in their little corners with their digital triad (phone, laptop, ipod) of tools. She has written extensively on concerns dealing with work and technology as well as technology and gender. Among publications she is author of: Windows on the Workplace (Monthly Review Press, 2004); Design at Work (Erlbaum Press, 1991) and In the Name of Efficiency (Temple University Press, 1979).

She currently teaches in Environmental Psychology with courses such as “Mobile Technology and Everyday Life” and “Interactive Environments”, and has taught Core I in Interactive Technology and Pedagogy for many years. Joan Greenbaum has pointed many students in the direction of the New Media Lab and serves as an advisor to many at the Lab.