Will Sutherland studies growth and change in information infrastructures, particularly in the sciences. His recent work has examined how research labs reorganize around new demands for software development work and new deliberative processes emerging around large-scale automated data collection efforts. He has also studied changing work practices around digital labor platforms in the gig economy, and how people work with, against, and around automated systems.

Will’s work favors depth-wise qualitative analysis, broadly inspired by pragmatic interactionist sociology and social informatics. His ethnographic work has spanned hackathons and software workshops in the sciences to research labs in the field of cosmology to large astronomical survey projects. Across these engagements he has worked to build better dialogues between the social sciences, natural sciences, and spheres of technology development.