I’m Stephanie, a historian, speaker, and writer who works at the intersections of mathematics, computing, and artificial intelligence. I hold a PhD in History of Science from Harvard University and am currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. I study how computers have transformed ideas about intelligence, knowledge, and reasoning from the mid-twentieth century to today. My work traces the histories of automated mathematics and artificial intelligence to show how technical projects are also social, political, and cultural struggles over what counts as knowledge. I believe that history offers tools for navigating our present moment of rapid AI proliferation and work to make historical insights accessible and useful from classrooms to boardrooms.

Outside of the university, I offer lectures, workshops, and guidance on AI for industry professionals, labor unions, and interested publics. In a time of rapid change and rampant hype, I draw on my understanding of the history of technological development to help organizations recognize and balance the differences between human and machine intelligence, which I think is essential in this moment. I am regularly invited to participate in and present at events oriented around AI and the future of the work, AI and society, AI ethics, and AI regulation and have shared my expertise in diverse venues from NPR to Prada Mode to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I am represented by the Canadian Speakers Bureau, and I give keynotes and workshops that put AI in historical and cultural perspective—helping boards, leaders, labour unions, and public audiences understand both the opportunities and the risks. I also teach in Next Gen Learning’s course Generative AI: Wisdom and Warnings from the Harvard Data Science Review, where I work with industry professionals to think critically about the systems they are adopting with an eye to developing frameworks for use and governance.

My work is also creative. I’m the author of an in-progress comic book called Recognition, which explores existential questions raised by AI: What does it mean to recognize a mind, or to be recognized by one? I write Pysanky eggs in the Ukrainian style, inspired by comics, mythology, my ancestry, and history of science. And I’m a Dungeon Master, designing campaigns for friends that echo themes from my scholarship—minds and memory, collectivity and power, and the possibilities of imagination.

I am a Co-PI on the Data Fluencies Grant at the Digital Democracies Institute; I co-edit the “Mining the Past” column at the Harvard Data Science Review; I serve on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing; I am a Fellow with the Dialogue on Technology Project at SFU’s Centre for Dialogue; I am a member of the Scholarly Council at the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA; I was a co-organizer on the Mellon Sawyer Seminar, “Histories of AI: A Genealogy of Power” at the University of Cambridge and before joining the faculty at SFU, I was an Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Junior Fellow with the Harvard Society of Fellows.

Across scholarship, speaking, teaching, and creative storytelling, my goal is the same: to open up conversations about AI that are technically rigorous, accessible, and deeply human.