Morgan Ames

assistant adjunct professor in the School of Information and interim associate director of research for the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society

Morgan G. Ames researches the ideological origins of inequality in the technology world, with a focus on utopianism, childhood, and learning. Her book The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (MIT Press, 2019) draws on archival research and a seven-month ethnography in Paraguay to explore the cultural history, results, and legacy of the OLPC project—and what it tells us about the many other technology projects that draw on similar utopian ideals. Ames is an assistant adjunct professor in U.C. Berkeley’s School of Information, teaching in Data Science. She is also interim associate director of research for the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society, where she administers the Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies. She holds a PhD is in communication (with a minor in anthropology) from Stanford, and a B.A. in computer science and M.S. in information science from U.C. Berkeley.