UC San Diego
Department of Communication
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Katrina PetersenKatrina Petersen

Email Address: kgpetersen@ucsd.edu

Education

  • Ph.D. Student (University of California – San Diego) Communication and Science Studies. Expected 2013.
  • M.Sc. (University of Amsterdam) Science and Technology Studies, Cum Laude, awarded 2005. Advisors: Anne Beaulieu and Olga Amsterdamska. Thesis: “Picturing the Pieces: the Body in Images on the World Wide Web”, A study of three anatomy Web sites for teenagers, examining how the structure of images and the technology of the Web mediate knowledge of the body.
  • B.A. (Carleton College) Geology, Cum Laude, awarded 1997. Senior Thesis: Research relating to underwater erosional features of the Pacific Northwest coast.

Background

My research interests developed out of a background in geology and museums. After my undergraduate education in geology, I spent seven years working in the Twin Cities at museums of science, technology, and history of science.  Most of that time was spent at The Bakken Library and Museum, a museum focusing on the science of electricity and magnetism, their history, and relationship to everyday life. I taught courses on history of electricity, invention and circuitry workshops, drew illustrations, and designed exhibits, for elementary and middle school students and public school teachers. It was in my time there that I began to ask how images, especially scientific images, are culturally and socially grounded and what the role of these images have in how we come to know the worlds around us.

Research Interests

My work is at the intersection of visual representations, digital imaging technologies, and natural disasters. I explore the ways in which we come to know natural phenomena and city space we experience daily yet come to know visually only through mediation. I hope to uncover the ways in which the visual is an interactive field by examining the ways in which people understand what is represented in two-dimensional images as events that occur over time. In my research, I hope to explore cross-cultural and cross-border use of images, the relationship between a person’s interaction with visual representations and their experience of what is represented, how images are used across multiple mediums, historical uses of images for education, as well as the interaction between visibility and invisibility. I also want to examine the role of the visualization technologies and networks of designs involved in the production of an image.