Biography
Dr. Melissa Cefkin is a Lecturer of General Engineering, whose work sits at the intersection of social and behavioral research, humanity-centered design, and complex technology innovation and development, especially with AI and automation. She is an anthropologist who has been working alongside software engineers, modelers, and computer scientists as an applied researcher and consultant in the development of autonomous vehicles. Her key focus is on the social, ethical, and interactional dimensions of their design and operation, with core attention to vehicle behavior and signaling. An additional area of her experience, within the broader frame of the ethnographic study of organizations and product and service development, is on labor and organizational life, including work practice studies and the development and deployment of enterprise work technologies and systems.
Dr. Cefkin has held leadership positions at Waymo, Nissan-Renault, IBM Research-Almaden, Sapient, and the Institute for Research on Learning, and has maintained an active program of academic engagement through teaching, publishing, and student mentorship at San Jose State University, California College of the Arts and beyond. A Fulbright grantee, she helped establish and grow the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (www.epicpeople.org) and has served on task forces and committees for the National Science Foundation and the National Academies of Science.
Education
B.A. Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Ph.D. Anthropology, Rice University
Courses Taught
ENGR 11a and 12b: Culture, Technology, and the Common Good
Recent Publications
2023 Cefkin, M. “Translating the Social in Complex Technology Development.” American Ethnologist 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13251
2020 Gershon, I. and M. Cefkin. “Click for Work: Rethinking Work through Online Work Distribution Platforms.” 20(4), Ephemera Journal
2019 Cesafsky, L., E. Stayton, M. Cefkin. “Human-AI Teaming and The Future of Work Amid Highly-Automated Systems.” Proc of Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conf (EPIC), Providence, RI
2018 Stayton, E., M. Cefkin. “Designing for Care: Systems of Care and Accountability in the Work of Mobility.” Proc of Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conf (EPIC), Honolulu, HI
2018 Zhang, J. E. Vinkhuyzen, M. Cefkin. “Evaluation of an Autonomous Vehicle External Communication System Concept: A Survey Study.” In: Stanton, N. (eds) Advances in Human Aspects of Transportation. AHFE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 597. Springer, Cham
2017 Stayton, E., M. Cefkin, J. Zhang, “Autonomous Individuals in Autonomous Vehicles: The Multiple Autonomies of Self-Driving Cars.” Proc of Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conf (EPIC), Montreal
2016 Vinkhuyzen, E., M. Cefkin. “Developing Socially Acceptable Autonomous Vehicles.” Proc of Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conf (EPIC), Minneapolis, MN
2014 Cefkin, M., O. Anya, R. Moore. “A Perfect Storm? Reimagining Work in the Era of the End of the Job.” Proc of Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conf (EPIC), New York, NY
2014 Haas, L., M. Cefkin, C. Kieliszewski, W. Plouffe, M. Roth et al. “The IBM Research Accelerated Discovery Lab.” SIGMOD Record 43:2
