David Morrison

David Morrison is a PhD student at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in Society whose past and present work concern public engagement with science and sustainability, especially through technology.

His Master's thesis at ASU's School of Sustainability focused on how the design choices of platforms such as Facebook interact with user behavior to influence social mobilization for local climate change initiatives.  He also worked on an international, transdisciplinary team to create and implement a capacity-building workshop for sustainable food entrepreneurs in Tempe.

In the realm of citizen science, he has been instrumental to the development of ASU's Citizen Science Network as well as a public library program facilitating public participation in citizen science through access to tools.  He is a graduate research fellow for the UREx Sustainability Research Network, where he works on scenarios and knowledge systems innovation.  Finally, he is a member of the ASU's Center for Smart Cities and Regions.

In his doctoral studies, David is broadly concerned with cultivating the social and political will for sustainability transitions, and specifically investigates the design and governance of digital platforms as a means to facilitate meaningful public engagement in sustainability.  Some subjects of interest include:

• How such platforms can be designed to capture the public's spare time, effort, ideas, resources, and enthusiasm, and channel it into effective, efficient, legitimate, and sustained collective activities that support and / or drive sustainability transitions
• How platforms, which considerably influence the collective flow of users' attention and resources, can be governed in ways that are recognized as legitimate and responsive to community interests and values, especially in the face of challenges such as inequity and the digital divide