Distinguished Teaching Professor of Communication and Information and Director of Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Studies Mary Chayko has been reappointed Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Honors College-New Brunswick in 2021-2022 for a fifth consecutive year. She will teach and mentor honors students, supervise their research, and conduct her own research on the impact of social media and digital technology, all while situated in a faculty living space in the building.
Chayko will focus on two research projects at the Honors College this year. In the first, she is collaborating with Honors College student Jacob Roy, among others at the Behavioral Informatics Lab at the School of Communication and Information (SC&I), to explore gender bias and stereotyping in household “smart” devices. They will present their initial findings at the annual meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) this fall.
Chayko’s second major project for 2021-2022 involves the use of digital technology to connect prospective organ donors and recipients with one another. She is partnering with collaborators from Robert Wood Johnson – Barnabus, the Rutgers Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA), and the Honors College Innovation Lab to study and develop technologies to help facilitate organ donation and the distribution and collection of needed resources.
Chayko will also offer a Byrne Seminar, Selfies and Digital Culture, to Rutgers-New Brunswick Honors College students in Fall 2021.
“The Honors College is a beautiful, diverse, and intellectually rich place in which to study, work, and live, and it’s just a block away from SC&I,” Chayko said. “My appointment here is a unique opportunity to share all the exciting things happening at SC&I with the honors community, and vice versa.”
Chayko’s book “Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life” has recently been published in its third edition by SAGE Publications. The multidisciplinary primer on digital life and society has been adopted in over 60 college courses nationally and internationally. See the blog for her book and her website.
Chayko directs the Digital Communication, Information, and Media (DCIM) and Gender and Media minors at the School of Communication and Information, and is an affiliate faculty member of the departments of Sociology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She has received Rutgers University’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching and been named a Faculty of Arts and Science Distinguished Contributor to Undergraduate Education at Rutgers. You can follow her on LinkedIn, on Instagram @Mary.Chayko, and on Twitter @MaryChayko.
View Chayko’s video welcome to Honors College students here.
Discover more about the Digital Communication, Information, and Media (DCIM) and Gender and Media minors on the Rutgers School of Communication and Information website.
