Peter Darch

Peter Darch is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences (iSchool) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining the iSchool, Darch worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the UCLA Department of Information Studies and Center for Knowledge Infrastructures. His dissertation for the DPhil in computer science from the University of Oxford (2012) addressed how scientists and software engineers in online citizen science projects manage members of the public to process and generate large datasets. This doctorate followed an MA in the history and philosophy of science and medicine (Durham University, 2006) and an MMath in mathematics from the University of Oxford (2004). 

He is particularly interested in the profound changes in the organization and conduct of contemporary scientific research that result from the interaction of technologies that afford collection of increasing quantities and types of scientific data with broader sociotechnical factors. To study these changes, he conducts longitudinal ethnographic studies of large, multidisciplinary scientific projects, applying theoretical approaches from science and technology studies to examine relationships between contexts in which these collaborations are embedded, information infrastructures, and scientists’ day-to-day data practices.