Back in the 1990s, I was one of the first academic researchers involved in the early days of the Internet, studying text-based virtual worlds, early messaging platforms and social networks, digital games, and technology for international development. As an English professor, I studied how race and gender impacted patterns of technology adoption. In 2000, I transitioned from the humanities to engineering (and the UW) to help build more inclusive technologies that addressed the needs of more diverse communities. I spent 8 years studying the emergence of internet and mobile phone usage in Central Asia, which also propelled me to a range of international research that eventually focused on health related tech.

In 2012 I started a company focused on building affordable medical devices, Shift Labs, which went through Y Combinator in 2015, and since then I've started teaching and researching about entrepreneurship.

Shift Labs also emerged from innovation work I did at the UW; in 2006 I helped kickstart the academic makerspace movement with my Hackademia project at the University of Washington in 2006, which examined non-expert innovation influenced by the maker and hacker communities worldwide.