Freddy Reiber

Picture of Freddy Reiber

 
Hi! I am Freddy Reiber, a third year PhD student in the Computing & Data Science program at Boston University where I am fortunate to be advised by the fantastic Allison McDonald.

Broadly I am interested in 2nd order questions about how society influences technology and how technology influences society. My research focuses on applying human-focused methods to analyze the political and economic power structures encoded in technology and how technology can reinforce them. I am also interested in how organized labor communities utilize technology to help further their goals.

Previously I have worked in areas like:

Like any PhD student, I like to do a lot, with a good chunk of those activities linked below!

My non-academic facing work is available here:

My main non-academic writing is available on my Substack - A Little Blog of Big Thoughts (yes this is a Frog and Toad reference). The blog's general focus and thesis is on understanding technology and its development as a political process. Posts generally seek to understand how political economy issues shape technological development by understanding tech artifacts from a Marxist and critical theory perspective. 

I will also occasionally write and edit articles for Working Mass, a publication focused on providing coverage to organized labor issues and encouraging a democratic and progressive union. My coverage is usually focused on public sector or tech industry unions.  

Finally, am also a proud member and organizer of both BDSA - Boston Democratic Socialists of America and BUGUW: Boston University Graduate Workers Union, and am happy to talk about my work with either.

My academic facing work is available here:

As an academic in training, I publish per-reviewed papers (often in conferences) and a listing my papers is available here.

I also give research talks, some of which are recorded and are available here.

More recently, my friend Eugene Kim and I started multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional reading group on topics relating to political economy and computer science. The webpage for the group is available here, which provides a list of readings and topics for those who are interested in the space.

I have also run a number of service and educational programs within both my current university and undergraduate university. Access to those projects is available here.

My former/mostly defunct blog about looking at modern board games through a theoretical computer science lens is available here: "The Board Game Scholar".

For things that I think are cool, but don't really fit any of the above, I also maintain a page that is available here!

Finally, here is a collection of my social media and contact information. These communities are often connected with my hobbies or academic interests, and I do my best to to keep them updated. However, I am more active on some of these platforms over others.