Jennifer S. Light

America; Information Technology and Urban Life; Inequality in the Information Society

Office: Frances Searle 2-152
Phone: 847-467-7106
E-mail: lightnorthwestern.edu

Jennifer S. Light is an associate professor at Northwestern University, in the School of Communication and the Departments of History and Sociology, and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. She received an AB in History and Literature (1993) and PhD in History of Science (1999) from Harvard University, and also holds an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University (1994), where she was the Lionel de Jersey Harvard Scholar. Light has taught courses on the history and sociology of technology at Northwestern, Harvard, and the University of Edinburgh, and held the Derek Brewer Visiting Fellowship at Cambridge University. She has also consulted for the RAND Corporation's National Defense Research Institute.

Light works on historical and contemporary issues raised by the intersections between new technologies and urban life. She is the author of From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003; paperback 2005), and articles appearing in Technology and Culture; Gender, Place, and Culture; Ecumene; Environment and Planning D: Society and Space; Journal of the American Planning Association, and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. She has also contributed to anthologies including Virtual Geographies, Living in the Information Age, Gender and Technology: A Reader, and Using History to Improve Computer Science Education. Light's recent research has been awarded grants from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Historical Society of Southern California. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Communication and the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, on the Steering Committee of the Newberry Library's Seminar on Technology, Politics, and Culture, and is Program Chair for the 2006 meeting of the Society for the History of Technology. Light is currently at work on a history of urban simulations under contract to Johns Hopkins University Press.