I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication at North Carolina State University.I have a background in the field of Communication with an interdisciplinary approach to research that articulates Media and Cultural Studies perspectives with Design and Arts practices. I believe that innovative research and teaching must mobilize intellectual, conceptual inquiry as well as tacit, “hands on” experimentation. My initial inquiries about interactivity in net art practices and the materiality of code in software art experiences allowed me to understand how the materiality of dispositifs render specific creative poetics and modes of mediation through technology appropriation. Recently, by looking at the adoption of wearable computing and experimenting with Critical Making, I have investigated the rise of quantification as a parameter for subjectification for the contemporary networked condition of human, non-human bodies, as well as physical spaces and things.

I am primarily interested in understanding ways of becoming, of making, and of knowing through and with media technologies. In this sense, my research questions adopt a materialistic lens to Communication to investigate critical, creative, and subversive meaning-making practices, forms of knowledge, and subjectification. Feel free to explore my current research agenda.

My research and teaching interests include theoretical and practice oriented courses in Digital Media, such as New Media Theory and History, Design for Interactive Media, Mobile Media, Media Arts, and Activism. More information on my teaching experience is available here.

I have held previous academic positions in Brazil, at the Department of Communication at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (2017-2020), and at the School of Design, at the State University of Minas Gerais (2016-2017). Prior to that, I held teaching positions at the Undergraduate and Graduate levels at the College of Communication and Arts at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, from 2007 until 2010. During this time, I also worked with the State Government of Minas Gerais as the Superintendent for Public Policy in Higher Education (Science and Technology Secretariat). I hold a PhD in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media from North Carolina State University (Fulbright-CAPES Brazil Class of 2015), a MPhil in Communication from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (CAPES Brazil Class of 2007), and a BA in Communication/Advertising from the Catholic University of Minas Gerais (2003). My full CV is available here. Contact me at fduarte@ncsu.edu