Gili Vidan

Gili Vidan is an assistant professor in information science and a graduate field member in the Department of Science and Technology Studies and the Media Studies graduate minor field. Trained as a historian of computing, her work examines how shifts in abstract political notions such as trust and good governance are made concrete and transformed through the digital technologies we develop and use. In particular, Vidan focuses on the overlapping ways political, social, commercial, and epistemic values literally materialize in our payment and communication technologies, from automated check-processing to digital watermarking. Her book, “Technologies of Trust,” traces technical attempts to solve the problems of trust and authentication in the postwar U.S and has been accepted by the Infrastructures series at MIT Press.