About Michael Zimmer
Michael Zimmer is the Microsoft Resident Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School for 2007-2008. He recently received his PhD in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University under the guidance of Profs. Helen Nissenbaum, Alex Galloway, and Siva Vaidhyanathan. With a background in media ecology, the philosophy of technology, and science and technology studies, Zimmer’s research explores social, cultural, and dimensions of new media and information technologies, with particular focus on how technological design bears on the values of privacy, autonomy, and liberty. He has published and delivered talks across North America and Europe on the ethical and value implications of web search engines, Web 2.0, networked vehicle information systems, and other new media technologies.
Zimmer’s dissertation, “The Quest for the Perfect Search Engine: Values, Technical Design, and the Flow of Personal Information in Spheres of Mobility,” investigates of how the quest for the “perfect search engine” empowers the widespread capture of personal information flows across the Internet, threatening the ability to engage in online social, cultural, and intellectual activities free from answerability and oversight, thereby bearing on the values of privacy, autonomy, and liberty.
Zimmer earned a B.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame in 1994 and worked for an electronic payment processing company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for several years before moving to New York City to pursue his graduate education. He earned an M.A. in Media Ecology from NYU in 2002, and his doctoral studies were supported by the Phyllis and Gerald LeBoff Doctoral Fellowship in Media Ecology from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. His dissertation research was supported by an NSF SES Dissertation Improvement Grant.