Tajanae Harris

Tajanae Harris' research studies marginalized communities as they develop practices for collecting and making meaning for data as they strive towards justice and self-determination. An ethnographer by training, much of her dissertation research centers data practices of Environmental Justice activists in her home community, West Dallas, TX. This work has been funded numerous fellowships and awarded including the Google Award for Inclusive Research and received Honorable Mention by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Recently, Tajanae has been drawn towards work that makes data visible and meaningful to everyday community members, resulting in internships at non-profit OpenAQ and Microsoft Research New England. Post-graduation, she intends to continue this trajectory of researching and supporting the development of data practices that enable participatory, three-dimensional, and tangible interactions between communities and the data collected from and about them.