University of Michigan School of Information

Silvia Lindtner
Biography
Silvia Margot Lindtner (she/her) is Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information and Director of the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC). She has conducted almost two decades of fieldwork in China, advancing the social and cultural study of technology. For the academic year of 2024-25, Lindtner is a Visiting Scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at the Yale Law School. She is the author of the award-winning book Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020), and co-author of the multigraph Technoprecarious (Goldsmiths/MIT Press 2020). Lindtner has a courtesy appointment in the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design and is affiliated with several interdisciplinary centers and initiatives on campus including the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, the Science, Technology and Society Program, the Digital Studies Institute, the Michigan Interactive and Social Computing Research Group, and directs the Tech.Culture.Matters. research group.
Lindtner has been a Visiting Associate Professor at NYU Shanghai (2021-2024), a CUSP (China-US Scholars Program) Fellow (2021-22), and a fellow in the National Committee on United States-China Relations’ Public Intellectuals Program (2021-23). Lindtner’s research has been awarded support from the US National Science Foundation (NSF), IIE (the Institute of International Education), IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services), Intel Labs, Google Anita Borg, and the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation. Her work has appeared at ST&HV (Science, Technology, and Human Values), ESTS (Engaging Science, Technology and Society), SocialText, Women’s Studies Quarterly, China Information, ToCHI, ACM SIGCHI (Human-Computer Interaction), ACM CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing), among other venues.
CV
Pronouns
she/her
Areas of interest
Science and Technology Studies (STS), Cultural and Feminist Anthropology, China Studies, Global China, HCI (human computer interaction), Critical Computing, Global Communication and Media Studies, Technology Policy, AI Justice
Honors & Awards
Joseph Levenson Prize for China Scholarship post 1900 by the association for Asian Studies (for Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation)
FRANCIS L.K. HSU BOOK PRIZE, awarded by the Society for East Asian Anthropology (for Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation)
Distinguished Member, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)
PIP (Public Intellectual Program) Fellowship, 2021-23
CUSP (China-US Scholars Program) Fellowship, 2021-22
Education
PhD, Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine
BS/MS of Applied Science, Media Technology and Design, University of Hagenberg, Austria