I’m the host of The Data Fix podcast, Director of the Environmental Media Lab (EML), and an Associate Professor in Film & Media at Queen’s University.


I’m an Associate Professor (Film and Media) at Queen’s University (Kingston, ON). I’m developing a research program looking at data infrastructure, extractivist AI, and the environment. I also hope to build a community around audio podcasting – as a tool for research, communication, and storytelling.

I’m the Director of the Environmental Media Lab (EML). At the EML, we’re creating a network that uplifts emergent scholarship, art, and activism, through our grad scholar in residence program, reading groups, Heliotrope, and other collaborative endeavours.

I’m the host and editor of The Data Fix, launched officially in January 2023. Tune in to listen to scholars – thinkers & feelers – discuss with me the various promises made by Big Tech and the stories people tell themselves about the future. I focus on ‘AI’, the environment, and feelings about the future.

I’m also an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Communication (since 2019).

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Academic trajectory: Before relocating to Kingston in Jan 2024, I was an Associate Professor in Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary (August 2016-Dec 2023). Before that, I held a tenure-track position at the Illinois Institute of Technology (now Illinois Tech), in Chicago (2014-2016). I’ve moved a lot - maybe too much.

My undergrad (1999) was at Acadia University, in Nova Scotia, followed by a Graphic Design program (2001) at Algonquin college, in Ottawa. I did my graduate training at Concordia University, in Montréal: a Communication Studies Graduate Diploma (GrDip) (2005), an MA in Media Studies (2007) and a research-creation PhD in Coms (2012). I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Curation at the University of Colorado-Boulder (2012-2014).

Since 2012, my research has been on the environmental impacts and the political and social implications of data centers and data infrastructure. As an extension of research that looks at alternatives to water- and energy- intensive data storage, I’m a PI for a SSHRC IG project (2021-2026) about DNA-based data storage. I’m also building out a project to bring scholars together who work on ‘extractivist AI’ — AI in the contexts of other industries (like oil & gas, mining, etc) that rely on and reinforce colonial-capital forms of extraction.

My research to date has been published in journals like Convergence, Culture Machine, Big Data & SocietyNew Media & Society, EphemeraFirst MondayTelevision & New Media, and the Canadian Journal of Communication among others. I especially enjoy writing as a form of public scholarship, such as The Pandemic's Dark Cloud, The Future of Death (in the Cloud) and Sweaty Zuckerberg and Cool Computing. I also really like participating in podcast interviews, like for “Stream if you wanna die faster” and This Machine Kills.

With Stefan Laser and Edward Ongweso Jr., I’m working on a collection of essays (title/theme to be revealed later!), under contract with Mattering Press.

I’m currently supervising doctoral student, Tessa J. Brown (UCalgary). Students I’ve supervised to project completion include: Crystal Chokshi (UCalgary, PhD); Drew Thomas (UCalgary, MA); Tessa J. Brown (UCalgary, MA); Madeleine Mendell (NYU, MA), and Sean Willett (UCalgary, MA).

Contact:
Dr. Mél Hogan (Associate Professor)
Queen’s University (Kingston, ON)
Department of Film & Media
Queen’s / GoogleScholar

Adjunct (Research)
Communication, Media and Film,
University of Calgary

Mastodon: @mel_hogan@mstdn.ca
Bluesky: @melhogan.bsky.social
Threads: mel_hogan.threads.net

EML
IG & Threads: envmedialab