My early research focused on the social and cultural history of software and software workers and the organizational dynamics of information technology. My first book, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise (MIT Press, 2013) explores the rise to power of a novel group of technical experts, the computer programmers, systems analysts, and other “whiz kids” who built their careers around the emerging technology of electronic digital computing. I have also written extensively about gender and the computing community, and in particularly the often overlooked and misunderstood role of women in computing.

I have written extensively on the history of computing more generally, and I am one of the co-authors of the third edition of Computer: A History of the Information Machine.

I am currently working on a global environmental history of computing tentatively entitled Dirty Bits: An Environmental History of the Information Age.

Other projects in progress include:

• a book project exploring the history of robotics;
• a forthcoming article on the history of computer crime and the early emergence of computer security as a disciple;
• a co-written article on AI doomerism;
• a co-written article on digital objects in archaeology and digital heritage;