Ryland Shaw

Hi, I’m Ryland. I am a sociotechnical researcher and documentary filmmaker asking critical questions about technology, the environment, and Silicon Valley cultures and values.

I earned an MA in Communication from Simon Fraser University, where I wrote a thesis about the socio-technical frictions that impede effective climate crisis communication on TikTok. Simultaneously, with a small but mighty team, I produced a feature documentary, Amakki, which saw a successful festival circuit including winning Best Feature Documentary at the 2024 Atlanta Film Festival and as an official selection of FESPACO. In 2023, I joined the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research as a pre-doctoral research assistant.

I currently have several projects at various stages of being cooked. In one (with Tarleton Gillespie and Parker Bach), we're looking at the types of AI-generated content that AI companies and researchers deem undesirable, and the internalist corporate discourses that incubated these categories. In another, I'm investigating how venture capital funding is shaping the development of young carbon capture technology startups. Lately, I've been thinking more broadly about how tech companies practice social and environmental responsibility, primarily in the recent emergence of 'AI-for-environment' initiatiives, and how the extension of corporate 'tech-for-good' initiatives to the climate crisis is changing the future of climate resilience. I will likely explore these questions in a future short documentary (pending funding!) and as a future PhD student.

I belong to quite a few communities and am constantly trying new hobbies. I've been on dodgeball and kickball teams in various LGBTQ sports leagues in Boston and NYC, and I'm currently learning volleyball in NYC's Gotham league. I recently learned how to ride a motorcycle, then drove it all around the mountains of Vietnam. I was a leader within my graduate school community at SFU, having served as Graduate Caucus Co-chair, among a ton of other committees and working groups. I feel most at home in creative spaces like SFU’s Media & Maker Commons, where I worked as an instructor for two years.