Kelly Gates

Assistant Professor in Communications and Science Studies

Education

Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 2004,

Research

New media technologies; science and technology studies; cultural policy

Professor Gates is currently writing a book that explores the effort, underway since the 1960s, to teach computers to see the human face.

In this work, she examines the social construction of automated facial recognition and automated facial expression analysis, focusing on the conceptual and cultural frameworks that are used to think about these technologies, and on the constellations of interests, institutions and social practices that are shaping their development.

At UCSD, Professor Gates teaches the history of communication research, the history of the Internet, and a course on surveillance, the media, and the risk society.

Publications

Our Biometric Future: The Pursuit of Automated Facial Recognition. (Under contract with NYU Press.)

Gates, K. “Biometric Registration: The Liquidation of U.S. Democracy?” (Forthcoming in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.)

Gates, K. and Magnet, S. “Communication Research and the Study of Surveillance.” The Communication Review 10 (December 2007): 277-293. Abstract

Gates, K. “Identifying the 9/11 ‘Faces of Terror’: The Promise and Problem of Facial Recognition Technology.” Cultural Studies 20:4-5 (July/September 2006): 417-440.

Gates, K. “Will Work for Copyrights: The Cultural Policy of Anti-Piracy Campaigns.” Social Semiotics 16:1 (April 2006): 57-73. Abstract

Gates, K. “Biometrics and Post-9/11 Technostalgia.” Social Text 83 (Summer 2005): 35-54.

Gates, K. “Authorship and Identity in the Genome Age.” Information, Theory and Society 1:1 (2002): 41-55.

Gates. K. “Wanted Dead or Digitized: Facial Recognition Technology and Privacy.” Television and New Media 3:2 (May 2002): 235-238.

Gates, K. “On How to Have Theory in an Epidemic: An Interview with Paula Treichler” (with Marie Leger) Television and New Media 1:3 (August 2000): 355-367.

Gates, K. “The U.S. Real ID Act and the Securitization of Identity.” In Playing the Identity Card: Surveillance, Security, and Identification in Global Perspective, eds. Colin Bennet and David Lyon. (Forthcoming from Routledge.)

Gates, K. “Technologies of Identity and the Identity of Technology: Race and the Social Construction of Biometrics.” In Race, Identity and Representation in Education (2nd edition), eds. Cameron McCarthy, Warren Crichlow, Greg Dimitriadis, and Nadine Dolby, 59-71. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Gates, K., Leger, M., and McGee, D. “Public Health Message Audiences” and “Pharmaceutical Advertising: Drug Dealing Direct to Consumer.” In Television Studies, ed. Toby Miller, 84-86. London: British Film Institute, 2002.