Marika Cifor

Marika Cifor is Assistant Professor in the Information School and adjunct faculty in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is a feminist scholar of archival studies and digital studies. Her research investigates how individuals and communities marginalized by gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, and HIV-status are represented and how they document and represent themselves in archives and digital cultures.

Cifor is the author of Viral Cultures: Activist Archiving in the Age of AIDS (University of Minnesota Press, 2022). In Viral Cultures, she examines the archives that keep the history and work of AIDS activism alive. Her archival ethnography details how contemporary activists, artists, and curators utilize these records to build upon the cultural legacy of 1980s and 1990s American AIDS activism to challenge the conditions of injustice that undergird current AIDS crises. She analyzes the power structures through which these archives are mediated, positioning vital nostalgia as both a critical faculty and a generative practice, reanimating the past in the digital age.

Cifor has published widely in critical information studies, gender and sexuality studies, and American studies on topics including affect and archives, feminist data studies, and community-based information practices. Cifor co-edited a 2018 special issue of Archival Science on Affect and the Archive, a 2019 issue of the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies on Neoliberalism, and a 2020 special issue of First Monday on HIV/AIDS and Digital Media.

At the iSchool, Cifor is co-founder of AfterLab and affiliated with the DataLab and the Technology and Social Change (TASCHA) group. She is also a member of the interdisciplinary Border Quants: Feminist Approaches to Data, Bodies and Technologies Across Borders research team she is working to develop feminist data studies.

AFFILIATE POSITIONS

• Affiliate Faculty, AfterLab, Information School
• Affiliate Faculty, DataLab, Information School
• Affiliate Faculty, Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA), Information School

SPECIALIZATIONS

• Archives and Record Management
• Digital Studies
• Gender and Technology

RESEARCH AREAS

• Information and Society
• Library and Information Science

EDUCATION

• Ph D, Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 2017
• MS, Library and Information Science, Simmons College, 2012
• MA, History, Simmons College, 2012
• BA, Political, Legal and Economic Analysis and History, Mills College, 2007

AWARDS

• Best Paper of the Digital and Social Media Track Nomination - HICSS 52, 2019
• Feminist Research Seminar on the Theme of Feminist Data - Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, 2018
• Ernst Posner Award - Society of American Archivists, 2017
• Conference Travel Grant - Litwin Books, 2016
• Graduate Research Mentorship Award - University of California, Los Angeles, 2016
• Honorable Mention for the Susan Garfinkel Prize in Digital Humanities - American Studies Association, 2016
• National Science Foundation Travel Grant Award - Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) Conference, 2016
• Runner-Up Award for Most Interesting Preliminary Results Paper - iConference, 2016
• Archival Education and Research Institute Scholarship - University of Maryland, College Park, 2015
• Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship - Social Science Research Council, 2015
• Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award - University of California, Los Angeles, 2015
• Archival Education and Research Institute Scholarship - University of Pittsburgh, 2014
• Graduate Summer Research Mentorship - University of California, Los Angeles, 2014
• LGBT Studies Conference Travel Grant - University of California, Los Angeles, 2014
• Initiated to Membership - Beta Phi Mu: Library and Information Science Honor Society, 2012
• Mary Lily Research Grant - Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, 2012
• Book Award - Beta Beta Chapter of Beta Phi Mu, Simmons College, 2011
• Office of Sponsored Programs’ Travel Award - Simmons College, 2011
• Office of Sponsored Programs’ Travel Award - Simmons College, 2010
• Initiated to Membership - Phi Alpha Theta: History Honor Society, 2006

MEMBERSHIPS

• American Studies Association
• Association for Library and Information Science Education
• Fembot Collective
• FemTechNet
• National Women’s Studies Association
• Society for Cinema and Media Studies
• Society for the Social Studies of Science
• Society of American Archivists