Resume

Education

University of California at Berkeley; School of Information    8/05 – Present
Doctoral degree in Information Management and Systems with Designated Emphasis in New Media expected in May 2010; Field concentrations in the Social studies of information, New media literacies, Qualitative and design methods for the study of new media and information systems

University of California at Berkeley; School of Information Management and Systems     8/03 – 5/05
Earned a Masters in Information Management and Systems

Stanford, University, Stanford, CA    9/96 – 6/00
Earned a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in Science, Technology, and Society
Concentrations in Technology Policy and Computer Science
Member of Stanford chapter of Phi Beta Kappa

Research experience

Graduate Student Researcher, Digital Media and Learning Networked Studio 7/08 – Present

  • Contributing to shaping of MacArthur Foundation efforts to create research hub for digital media and learning research projects
  • Ongoing research in understanding the role of new media in the changing landscape of institutions serving youth populations

Graduate Student Researcher, Digital Youth Research 1/05 – 6/08

  • Conducted research in understanding collaboration and creativity in teenagers’ online and offline creative practice
  • Created and ran an after school program that explored the design of an online, collaborative storytelling application for fifth graders
  • Conducted ethnographic fieldwork at an urban youth and technology center exploring forms of collaboration and learning using digital technology
  • Contributed to grant proposal that resulted in $3.8 million dollar grant from the MacArthur Foundation
  • Work with team of researchers on 3-year grant to explore the relationship between kids technology use in their everyday lives

Interaction designer and user researcher, Organum project, UC Berkeley; Berkeley, CA    1/04 – 5/06

  • Worked with team on the design and development of voice-drive multiplayer game and art installation, focusing on all aspects of participant experience
  • Conducted interviews and observations which informed design of project and our understanding of art-goers engagement with new media art exhibits

Lead Interaction designer, Garage Cinema Research, UC Berkeley; Berkeley, CA    3/04 – 10/04

  • Lead team of four designers in the design of photo sharing application for camera-phones
  • Created mockups and prototypes for all aspects of interface
  • Conducted interviews with camera-phone users, which helped drive design requirements

Independent Researcher, Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA    6/04 – 9/04

  • Conducted literature review on the use of technology by youth outside of school, focusing on youth as designers and digital literacy
  • Contributed to White Paper on youth, technology, and informal learning

Teaching experience

Graduate Student Instructor – History of Information, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA    7/09 – Present

  • Co-lecturer for 48-person interdisciplinary, undergraduate course that examines the social, cultural, political, and technical changes over associated with what we think of now as “information systems”
  • Responsible for creating lectures, creating assignments, grading, and managing the course

Graduate Student Instructor – Foundations of American Cybercultures , UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA    8/04 – 12/04

  • Lead two 24-person discussion sections for interdisciplinary, undergraduate course on contemporary cultural dynamics of the interplay between people and new forms of media
  • Instructed students in technical skills and research skills for projects
  • Graded written essays, technical projects, and research reports

Graduate Reader, Digital Media Design Studio, UC Berkeley; Berkeley, CA    1/04 – 5/04

  • Assisted with class preparation and evaluation for 12-person graduate level course that enabled graduate students from different departments to conceptualize and prototype projects in new media

Industry Experience

The Hive Group; San Mateo, CA      10/00 – 7/03
Director of Professional Services, Manager of Product Development

  • Oversaw deployment of Honeycomb product line at all Hive Group customers, including several Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and online product catalogs
  • Worked closely with customers and end-users in defining product and solution requirements
  • Lead team of five engineers in implementation of solutions
  • Managed post-implementation client relationships, including conducting on-site training sessions
  • Managed to completion all aspects of Hive Group product development, including product requirements definition and engineering project management
  • Co-invented patented Honeycomb Studio (U.S. Patent number 7076742)

User Interface Designer and Product Manager

  • Designed and prototyped new features of Honeycomb product line
  • Authored Honeycomb User’s Manual, which greatly enhanced customers’ ability to learn product and reduced time for deployment
  • Co-authored Hive group strategic business plans, technology white papers, competitive analyses and various marketing materials

Associate Producer, Series and Shows, shockwave.com; San Francisco, CA    8/00 – 9/00

  • Managed content integration of Flash shows into shockwave.com site across multiple internal teams
  • Oversaw quality assurance testing process and content delivery specifications
  • Managed technical relationships with studios and external developers

Publications

  • Perkel, Dan. 2008. Copy and Paste Literacy? Literacy Practices in the Production of a MySpace Profile. In Drotner, Kirsten, Hans Siggard Jensen, and Kim Schroeder (eds). Informal Learning and Digital Media: Constructions, Contexts, Consequences. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 203-224.
    • Also translated into Farsi and republished in Global Media Journal, Persian Edition, Issue 5. http://gmj.ut.ac.ir/abstract_article.aspx?id=31
    • Also forthcoming in: Virtual Identities: The Construction of Selves in Cyberspace. Eds. Caroline Maun and Laura Corrunker. Spokane: Eastern Washington University Press.
  • Antin, Judd, Dan Perkel, and Christo Sims. 2008. “Unexpected Collaborations: Kids’ Appropriation of GarageBand as a Group Creative Tool”. School of Information. Paper 2008-027. http://repositories.cdlib.org/ischool/2008-027
  • Yardi, Sarita, and Dan Perkel. 2007. Understanding Classroom Culture Through a Theory of Dialogism: What Happens When Cheating and Collaboration Collide? Computer Supported Collaborative Learning Conference. Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA, July 16-July 21, 2007.
  • Niemeyer, Greg, Dan Perkel, Ryan Shaw, Jane McGonigal. 2005. Organum: individual presence through collaborative play. ACM Multimedia 2005, Singapore, ACM Press, 594-597
  • Davis, Marc, Nancy Van House, Jeff Towle, Simon King, Shane Ahern, Carrie Burgener, Dan Perkel, Megan Finn, Vijay Viswanathan, and Matthew Rothenberg. 2005. MMM2: Mobile Media Metadata for Media Sharing. In: Extended Abstracts of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2005) in Portland, Oregon, ACM Press, 1335-1338.

Conference and workshop presentations

  • The Art of Theft: Creativity and Copyright in Online Art Worlds. Presentation at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings. San Francisco, CA. November 19-23, 2008.
  • Peer pedagogy in an interest-driven community: the practices and problems of online tutorials. Presentation at the Media@lse Fifth Anniversary Conference. London, UK. September 21-23, 2008. (with Rebecca Herr-Stephenson). Availabe online at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21576/
  • Making deviant (?) art. Presentation at the Para*Site New Media Symposium hosted by the Berkeley Center for New Media. Berkeley, CA. October 26, 2007.
  • Everyday Creativity: Appropriation Before, During, and After Dissemination. Workshop presentation at the 2007 ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition. Washington, D.C. June 13-16, 2007.
  • Copy, Paste, Remix: Profile Codes on MySpace. Presentation at the 2007 Annual Conference for the International Communications Association. San Francisco, CA, May 24-28, 2007. (with danah boyd)
  • Yardi, Sarita and Dan Perkel. Digital Kids Describe Digital Lives. Chairs: Cynthia Carter Ching & Yasmin B. Kafai Other Panelists: Brigid Barron, Kevin M. Leander, X., Kylie Peppler, Christopher M Hoadley, Christine Wang. Discussant: Marina Bers. “Technobiographies: Researching Life Stories with Technology.” Interactive Symposium, 2007 American Educational Research Association (AERA). Chicago, IL, April 9-13, 2007. (presented by Sarita Yardi)
  • Copy and Paste Literacy: Literacy Practices in the Production of a MySpace Profile. Presentation at the conference on Informal Learning and Digital Media: Constructions, Contexts, and Consequences hosted by the Danish research centre on education and advanced media materials. Odense, Denmark. September 21-23, 2006.
  • Learning to play together: Crossing boundaries in art and design. Workshop presentation at the 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2006) in Montreal, Quebec. April 22-27, 2006. (with Ryan Shaw and Greg Niemeyer)

Art installations

  • “Good Morning Flowers (a.k.a. Away from the New)” appeared at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April 2006 and the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo, Egypt in August 2006. (With Greg Niemeyer and Ryan Shaw)
  • “Organum: The Game” appeared at various galleries and conferences between April 2005 and April 2006, including the New Langdon Art Center, the Digital Games Research Association Conference, The Banff Center, Mission Creek and Arts Festival, and ResFest 2005. (With Greg Niemeyer, Ryan Shaw, and Jane McGonigal)

Grants and awards

  • Contributed to proposal for Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media (MacArthur Foundation), $3,800,000
  • Contributed to Bears Breaking Boundaries 2008 Idea Labs recipient for proposal to organize workshop and ongoing collaboration amongst information school doctoral students within the University of California system, $2,000

Service

  • Co-organizer of first doctoral student workshop across the three information schools in the University of California system, held in January 2009 and attended by over 50 doctoral students    4/08 – 1/09
  • Co-organizer of 060606: Down with Serious Games? Hosted by the Berkeley Center for New Media. (with Greg Niemeyer)
  • Served on Master’s Program Committee in the School of Information Management and Systems    9/04-5/05
  • Chairman of Academic Affairs Committee of Information Management Student Association    9/04-5/05

Other Skills

  • Research skills: Trained in qualitative, quantitative, and design-research methods, with several years experience in qualitative methods including participant-observation and interviewing.
  • Computer languages: Java, C, Python, XML, XSLT, HTML, JavaScript, CSS
  • Applications and software: Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks; Cycling 74 Max/MSP and Jitter; Apple Final Cut Pro
  • Languages: Working knowledge of Italian, Hebrew, and Spanish