avatar

Robert Soden

Robert Soden is an assistant professor in the Department Computer Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. His work focuses on crisis informatics, human-centered computing, and science and technology studies. Soden's research examines the ways in which computational tools shape societal knowledge of and response to disasters and climate change. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Colorado in May 2019. He also holds a master’s degree in natural resources and sustainable development from American University and bachelor’s degrees in history and political science from the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Latest posts

Crisis Informatics and Mutual Aid during the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Research Agenda

by

In his contribution to the “Covid-19 and the Social Sciences” series, Robert Soden describes how mutual aid groups are more effectively responding to the pandemic with the help of a broad range of technological and social media tools. Using the insights of crisis informatics, he draws out connections between traditional community organizing, disaster response, data privacy, disinformation, and social and racial justice. In addition to considering the importance of understanding this community work and strategies for the current moment, Soden looks ahead to a postpandemic world, urging researchers and communities alike to be sure to use what is learned now to forge a just “new normal” for the future.

Read more
July 2, 2020

Modes of Uncertainty: Rethinking Flood Risk in Colorado

by

Writing for our “Chancing the Storm” series, Robert Soden discusses the multiple meanings and uses of “uncertainty” in understanding floods and people’s responses to information about them. Building on extensive research on the design of floodplain maps in Colorado that declare some places, but not others, at risk, Soden argues the techno-science understanding of uncertainty that these maps represent is important but limiting. To supplement this perspective, he calls for imagining uncertainty as productive (“generative”) and as socially and politically structured (“systematically produced”), drawing on examples from the floodplain mapping project.

Read more
July 30, 2019
Close