Oliver L. Haimson is an Associate Professor at University of Michigan (UM) School of Information, where he directs the Community Research on Identity and Technology (CRIT) Lab. He is also affiliate faculty with the UM Digital Studies Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies. Haimson is a recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER award and multiple Best Paper and Honorable Mention awards at ACM CHI and ACM CSCW. He earned his Ph.D. in Information and Computer Science from University of California, Irvine.
Haimson conducts social computing and HCI research focused on envisioning and designing trans technologies, social media content moderation and marginalized populations, and changing identities on social media during life transitions. Much of his research has focused on transgender identities and experiences online and with social technologies. He is the author of Trans Technologies (MIT Press, 2025), a manuscript that examines how technology creates new possibilities for transgender people, and how trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology.
At Digital Futures, Haimson will be working on several different collaborative projects, including one focused on creating safer social media via intentionally small online communities. In this project, he will examine scaling down as a strategy for building and maintaining better and safer digital spaces for marginalized communities. This line of research aims to support these communities by learning from their needs and connecting them with key stakeholders (such as academic researchers and technologists) to determine how to design, build, and sustain safer and more community-driven self-governed digital infrastructures.
Contact: haimson@umich.edu
