About

Hi! I’m Dr. Samantha Shorey, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Moody College of Communication. I’m a design researcher who studies how communication about innovation shapes technology culture and technology labor. In my research, I seek to highlight the contributions of people who are often overlooked in our dominant cultural narratives about technology innovation— paying close attention to all the creativity and ingenuity of workers (women especially!). I’ve done research with technology makers who engage in a variety of processes: maintaining industrial AI-powered machines, prototyping with 3D printers, engineering with e-textiles and manufacturing hardware with woven wires. At the University of Texas, I am a member of the ethical AI research initiative Good Systems and in 2026 I will be a panel member of the AI100: Stanford’s 100 year study of AI.

I earned my PhD in Communication from the University of Washington, where I was a researcher at the Tactile and Tactical Design Lab in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering. In 2019, I was a fellow at the Smithsonian Museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. I’ve also worked with collaborative research teams at the University of Oxford, MIT, and as a pre-doctoral intern at Airbnb. I earned my Masters in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

e-mail me: sshorey (at) utexas.edu | tweet me: @samshorey