I am a professor in the Information School (or iSchool) at the University of Washington. I am a technologist by training (PhD from Stanford in 1979). I also have a diploma in calligraphy and bookbinding from the Roehampton Institute in London (1983). My work falls roughly into two phases: the years at the iSchool and a prior period at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC).

I was a researcher at Xerox PARC from 1984 to 1999 during which time I investigated the nature of documents, with a particular focus on the transition from paper to digital media. This work is available in a number of published articles and summarized in my book, Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age (Arcade, 2001).

I have taught at the iSchool since 2001 where I have mainly been investigating the challenge of achieving contemplative balance–how as individuals and as a society we might live healthy, reflective, and productive life while participating in an accelerating, information-saturated culture.

Increasingly, I have been taking the fruits of my research and teaching beyond the walls of my own institution, and beyond the academy. These efforts include offering lectures and workshops at other universities and the publication of a new book, Mindful Tech: How to Bring Balance to Our Digital Lives (Yale, 2016).