Judith Stefania Donath (born May 7, 1962) is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center, and the founder of the ''Sociable Media Group'' at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

. 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. She combines concepts from

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

, cognitive science, and various other disciplines, to develop methodologies for optimizing the design of mediated virtual cities on the internet and online virtual identities. She is a pioneer of online social media applications, including the first postcard application and the first interactive art show competition. Her work has been shown internationally in museums and galleries and recently at the

MIT Museum The MIT Museum, founded in 1971, is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It hosts collections of holography, technology-related artworks, artificial intelligence, architecture, robotics, maritime histor ...

as a major exhibit. Her research work includes issues centered on "identity and deception in online communities" and the creation of multiple virtual personae. In 1999 she researched the presence of deception in the online identities of

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

users, as well as the reconstruction of the personality of an individual using data gathered from both online and offline encounters.

Career

Donath obtained her Bachelor's degree in History from Yale and her Masters 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

by conceiving a mass online collaboration project which featured the construction of a large website by worldwide contributors. The event was named ''A Day in the Life of Cyberspace'' and is an early example of

mass collaboration Mass collaboration is a form of collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project, often modular in its nature. Such projects typically take place on the internet using social software and computer-s ...

on the Internet. 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 A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...

through the use of modern computer technology. In her 2000 book ''Being Real'', Donath explores the problems of

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

arising from the online behavioral dynamics of the interaction between human and possibly automated avatars in a virtual world. 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". Her work on sociable media has applications in the field of

semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

. On the subject of

telerobotics Telerobotics is the area of robotics concerned with the control of semi-autonomous robots from a distance, chiefly using television, wireless networks (like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Deep Space Network) or tethered connections. It is a combinatio ...

, Donath argues that the

remote manipulation A remote manipulator, also known as a telefactor, telemanipulator, or waldo (after the 1942 short story "Waldo" by Robert A. Heinlein which features a man who invents and uses such devices), is a device which, through electronic, hydraulic, or mec ...

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 Telerobotics is the area of robotics concerned with the control of semi-autonomous robots from a distance, chiefly using television, wireless networks (like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Deep Space Network) or tethered connections. It is a combinatio ...

of the robot. She has also researched the

of online communities. Her work includes the application of

architectural Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings o ...

principles to the design of the social interaction environment of online communities in a kind of

virtual city Virtual may refer to: * Virtual (horse), a thoroughbred racehorse * Virtual channel, a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel (or range of frequencies) on which the signal travels * Virtual function, a programming ...

. She has investigated best practices for online communication and their relation to issues of embodiment, gender, sexuality and identity. Donath has explored the use of artificial emotions in

avatars Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearance ...

and their potential use in

online advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

. 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. She has compared the anonymity of online flaming to the anonymity of vandalizing in real life. Donath spoke on identity, anonymity, and the wiki at the August 2006

Wikimania Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, f ...

conference. She returned as

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

References

External links

Judith Donath's homepage

''Signals, Truth, and Design''
YouTube video of Donath "Google Tech Talk" * {{DEFAULTSORT:Donath, Judith Living people 1962 births American computer scientists Human–computer interaction researchers American women computer scientists Yale College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Berkman Fellows MIT Media Lab people 21st-century American women scientists