[my last name] at umich dot edu
Oliver Haimson
@transtechnologies
@haimson.bsky.social
Oliver Haimson

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The Community Research on Identity and Technology (CRIT) Lab research group conducts research to examine how marginalized individuals and communities use social technologies and how they envision future technologies, often during times of identity transition, so that we can understand how to design technology that is more equitable and has potential to improve people’s lives.

Prospective students: I have not yet decided if I will be accepting PhD students or other new mentees in 2026 and 2027. If you are an especially good match for my research interests, I will definitely consider your application. If you happen to be genuinely interested in any of my strange current/future potential research interests, please get in touch: using randomness to make personal life decisions and/or in daily life; augmented reality for deciding and communicating with surgeons about trans surgery; how much do people/academics/HCI researchers read and how do they choose what to read; dream cartographies

lab photo fall 2026!
Denny, Senami, Oliver, Samuel, Hibby, Mel, Francesca

   

PhD Students

Senami Kojah PhD Candidate, co-advised by Kentaro Toyama pronouns: she/her research interests: genAI, content moderation, marginalized populations, social media, disinformation, censorship, authoritarianism, digital surveillance, human rights in the Global South

Francesca Lameiro PhD Candidate, co-advised by Eric Gilbert pronouns: he/him research interests: online communities, social media, transgender studies, social computing

Samuel Mayworm PhD student, co-advised by Michaelanne Thomas pronouns: he/him research interests: HCI, content moderation, social media and computing, folk theories, trans studies, online communities

Denny Starks PhD Candidate, co-advised by Tawanna Dillahunt pronouns: they/them research interests: LGBTQIA+ safety, BIPOC safety, online communities, social computing, identities, underserved communities, transgender studies, trans joy, resilience and communities

Hibby Thach PhD student, co-advised by Michaelanne Thomas pronouns: she/her research interests: content moderation, QTPOC experiences, multi-marginalization, gaming, HCI, trans technologies, live-streaming

   

Visiting Researcher

Mel Monier Researcher; PhD student at UM Dept. of Communication & Media pronouns: she/they research interests: trans media studies, digital media and digital labor, identities (particularly race, gender, sexuality) and embodiment

       

Alumni

Kat Brewster Lecturer, University of Michigan

Dan Delmonaco Reference and Instruction Librarian, Mount Sinai

Avery Everhart Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia

Josh Guberman

Ben Zefeng Zhang Assistant Professor, Stony Brook University

   

Taika Augustaitis	Justin Buss	AJ Carter	Shanley Corvite	Aloe DeGuia	O (Ollie) Downs
Dykee Gorrell	Jasmine Glover	Oliver Higgins	Shruti Jain	F. Ria Khan	Hayden Le
Shannon Li	Kimberly Liang	Alexxus Lige	Tianxiao (Sharol) Liu	Malaya Mañacop	Kai Nham
Peipei Nie	Christian Paneda	Virginia Pollock	Anushka Raheja	Caoyang Shen	Shakira Smith
Lingbo Wang	Andrea Wegner	Brookelyn Wheeler	Zu