Robin E. Mays

Background

About Robin E. Mays

Robin is a humanitarian practitioner and ethnographic researcher who explores the human and contextual factors of disaster and humanitarian response systems that lead to effective response. Her research revolves around understanding contextualized and dynamic meanings of value and effectiveness within humanitarian work; the balance of structure and flexibility in effective rapid response; the role of decision-making and implications for design of technology. Her contributions include identifying principles for designing better ICT for social agency and adaptation, and raising the call for ways to assess and incorporate moral values into ICT design. She received a Ph.D. from the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington for her work on ethics and technology within humanitarian systems. She has over 18 years experience in rapid response operations and logistics, with an 11-year career as a humanitarian logistician and over 20 years across command & control systems and strategic logistics within the USAF. As a member of the response communities she studies, her research couples an insider perspective with a theoretical framework drawn from human-centered theory and effective real-world practice.