The following interview with Dr. Alexi Orchard (PhD '24) by Dr. Jennifer Harris originally appeared in Words In Place, the English Department blog.
It seems like just last week I was posting about UWaterloo English alumna Dr. Alexi Orchard’s successful PhD defense. Shortly after that event, Dr. Orchard took up a position as Assistant Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Idzik Computing and Digital Technologies Minor at the University of Notre Dame. She was kind enough to agree to an interview for Words in Place about her experience of our graduate program and how it led to her current position. –JLH
JLH: Can you talk a bit about what your path to the University of Waterloo was? What made it a good fit for you?
AO: In the last two years of my undergrad at Thompson Rivers University, I was fortunate enough to start working as a research assistant and also to complete my own undergraduate thesis project. My supervisor at the time was Dr. Tracy Penny Light, who previously worked at the University of Waterloo and won the Faculty of Arts Distinguished Teacher Award there in 2012. She sparked my interest in research and teaching, and she encouraged me to go to Waterloo for graduate school. Tracy is a medical historian by training and introduced me to interdisciplinary research, which has probably been the most influential thing I encountered in my education.
Being part of the Critical Media Lab was the highlight of my time at Waterloo. It was a place that I could read, make, or research anything that I wanted. And sometimes there would be cookies lying around. I don’t know that you can ask for much more.
JLH: Are there particular opportunities or events that shaped your experience or trajectory?
AO: I started my master’s in English (Experimental Digital Media stream) in 2019, so the in-person experience was short-lived upon March 2020. Still, I made some initial connections with my classmates and professors that kept me engaged for the better part of 2020-2021 – the first year of my PhD in English. Again, I was fortunate to keep working as a research assistant on a few different projects, as well as work on my dissertation, with Drs. Marcel O’Gorman and Heather Love. They were great to work with and I hope to be even half of the scholars (and humans) that they are.
During grad school, even when it was virtual, one thing I loved doing was going to talks, workshops, or other events – especially in other departments. I really enjoy listening to other people talk about their work, and through that experience I’ve learned a lot about other types of expertise and how knowledge gets disseminated across different disciplines. It has been really useful to observe how other experts communicate and learn about their norms/values in academic and professional settings, and I would recommend people step outside their boxes and look into other topics more often. It’s very fun, humbling, and insightful.
JLH: Was it a logical path to where you are now?
AO: It has possibly been one of the least logical paths that one could imagine. I started studying business, switched to communication studies, switched to English/digital media, and then taught and researched engineering ethics, design, and communication. During my PhD, I also became a certified Pilates instructor, something which really improved my communication skills for instructing/teaching and lesson planning generally.
Now at the University of Notre Dame, I teach courses that focus on the ethics of technology, computing design, and generative AI. This path might not appear intuitive but I’m largely guided by the notion that interesting and important problems are not solvable by one discipline alone. A lot of the ideas and work worth pursuing need multiple kinds of perspectives, and educators, researchers, professionals, (etc., you name it!) should have an open mind beyond their own domains.
JLH: The transition from graduate student to professor was quite fast—how are you finding it?
AO: It was initially quite challenging to meet the pace of professorial and administrative work in my new role. As of this writing (early January), I am looking forward to my second semester – I have two team-taught courses (repeated from Fall) and one new course on the horizon. Planning my new course on AI ethics actually hasn’t been as daunting as I expected – I am just trying to find the texts that excite me, and hopefully they will excite the students as well.
JLH: And because we love a good book suggestion, what are you reading for fun—or planning to read for fun, once the term is over?
AO: I don’t have a “fun” book over the break unfortunately, but I am looking forward to a reading group just started – we’re calling it ‘Critical Tech Cafe’ and our first books include Glitchy Vision by Amanda K. Green, Technocolonialism by Mirca Madianou, and Death Glitch by Tamara Kneese.