Johanna Brewer facts for kids

Johanna Brewer is a talented developer, designer, and professor at Smith College. She is also an ethnographer. This means she studies how people use technology in their daily lives.

Johanna was a co-founder and CEO of a company called Frestyl. In 2014, she began working on tools to help people track their smart home systems. Her main goal was to make sure users' privacy was protected.

In 2016, she started her own research and design studio named Neta Snook. This studio focuses on creating technology that helps build a diverse society. In spring 2019, she joined the MIT as a researcher. Her work explores how computers are everywhere (this is called ubiquitous computing). She also studies how people and computers interact (known as human-computer interaction). She looks at how technology connects people and how it fits into society.

Her Education Journey

Johanna Brewer studied at Boston University. She earned a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Philosophy. She also received a master's degree in Computer Science from the same university.

Later, she earned her PhD in Informatics and Computer Science. This was at the University of California. While there, she also worked as a staff researcher.

Research and Projects

One of her research areas focused on urban computing. This is about how technology works in cities and how people move around in urban spaces. She did ethnographic studies to understand different groups of people. For example, she studied how inclusive and diverse the online gaming world is. She also looked at how people use public transportation.

Johanna helped create a new way to use a molecular simulator. This was for the Swiss National Supercomputer. She also developed a special tracking system. This system helps guide radiation therapy at the Massachusetts General Hospital.