Angela Okune studies data practices and infrastructures of research groups working in and on Nairobi, Kenya in order to explore broader questions of equity, knowledge production and socio-economic development in Africa. Grounded in the context of Nairobi as a heavily saturated site of research where many participants question its benefits, Angela is interested in shifting notions of ethical scientific responsibility to “open up” knowledge held in tandem with considerations of data protection and privacy. Angela is a doctoral candidate in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Irvine and has been awarded research fellowships by the National Science Foundation, The Wenner-Gren Foundation, and University of California Berkeley Center for Technology, Society and Policy. From 2010 – 2015, as co-founder of the research department at iHub, Nairobi’s innovation hub for the tech community, Angela provided strategic guidance for the growth of tech research in Kenya. She was a Network Coordinator for the Open and Collaborative Science in Development Network (OCSDNet) (2014 – 2018) and co-editor for open-access book Contextualizing Openness (University of Ottawa Press). She currently serves on the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Council and as a Design Team member of the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography (PECE). Angela is an Associate Editor on a collective editorial team for the Open Access journal, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society and also founded and manages an experimental, open ethnographic data portal called Research Data Share (www.researchdatashare.org).
