Nneka Udeagbala

Nneka Udeagbala is a Ph.D. student in UC Irvine's department of informatics and is advised by Professor Roderic Crooks. Udeagbala studies digital infrastructure in cities, especially infrastructures that support the provision of services and governance. Understanding how citizens interact with and conceptualize a technologically dense ecosystem can inform efforts to increase political participation at a variety of scales, ultimately empowering citizens and strengthening local communities. Udeagbala's research shows how these complex, situated and heterogenous conditions of use must be contextualized with respect to the dynamic relations of power and authority within which they arise. Udeagbala's current work analyzes digital inequality which concerns omission or exclusion of impacted communities.