Sally Applin
Spicer Winner 2012

Sally Applin is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, and works within the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC) as well as within the school of Anthropology and Conservation. She holds a Masters degree from the graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU/ITP) within New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and a BA in Conceptual Design from San Francisco State University. Sally has had a 20+ year career in the science museum design, computer software, telecommunications, and product design/definition industries working as a Senior UX Designer, Senior Consultant and Ethnographer. Her contributions have included developing exhibit content for the Hong Kong Museum of Science and Technology, conducting field research that led to the development of Go-gurt, and while at Apple Computer, Inc., Sally worked on one of the first Virtual Museum projects in the world.

At Kent, Sally is advised by Dr. Michael D. Fischer, Professor of Anthropological Sciences. Dr. Fischer is the founder of AnthroPunk, a movement that examines how people promote, manage, resist and endure change and create the context of the individuation of their experiences. Sally is a founding member of AnthroPunk and is also a member of IoT Council, a think tank for the Internet of Things.

Sally's work is driven by a motivation to understand how technology effects our lives--and by how the things and processes and systems that we make (and remake) shape our world. She is currently researching the impact of technology on culture, and the consequent inverse: specifically the reifications of Network Space in Personal Space. Her primary focus has been on a descriptive framework called PolySocial Reality (PoSR) (developed with Dr. Fischer), that models the aggregate of all the experienced 'locations' and 'communications' of all individual people in multiple networks at the same or different times.

Sally's background has provided her with a deep foundation in design for technology and anthropology is now providing the framework within which to situate human relations to technology. Sally hopes to continue to research how people reconcile the network with their lives as a contributor within applied industry.

Her paper at SfAA, "Blurry Borders and Blended Boundaries: PolySocial Reality in Digitally Individuated Communities" with Dr. Fischer, examines ways that those developing the social mobile web, might be able to contribute a solution that will defragment any unnecessary multiplexed network connections, and enable capabilities that integrate communities (in both grounded reality and network space).

Kyra Busch
Spicer Winner 2012

Kyra Busch has just completed a Masters of Environmental Science in Social Ecology of Conservation and Development at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. While at Yale, her studies focused on sustainable food systems, environmental justice and community-based development. Throughout her studies, she was privileged to work with communities all over the globe to address their particular environmental concerns including: a women’s agricultural cooperative in India; Papua New Guinea’s permanent mission to the United Nations; a farming community in Costa Rica; and the delegation of The Maldives to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Her Master’s research involved working with two distinct communities. She first lived in Kuna Yala, Panama, observing the indigenous community’s impressive bilingual and intercultural public school curriculum that has pioneered the integration of traditional ecological knowledge. Inspired by the Kuna and their educational model, Kyra created an agricultural history and food justice curriculum for U.S. students that she piloted at Common Ground High School in New Haven, CT. This research was supported by the Yale Agrarian Studies Program, Tropical Research Institute, Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies and President’s Public Service Fellowship. Kyra received her B.A. in Environmental and Social Justice and Political Science from Indiana University and is a Switzer Environmental Fellow.