People | SIGNAL Network

Directors

University of Waterloo

Shana MacDonald

Co-Director, SIGNAL

Shana MacDonald’s interdisciplinary research examines feminist, queer, and anti-racist media activism within social and digital media, as well as the rise of online hate, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, radicalization, social polarization online. Her digital media research employs critical humanities and computational analysis to study media and communication environments from a feminist perspective. This work builds important bridges between media studies and digital humanities highlighting digital media’s impact on everyday lives and our socio-cultural worlds. As O’Donovan Chair in Communication Across the Disciplines she builds opportunities for students, researchers, and the public to gather together and imagine equitable practices and collaborative approaches for building more socially just communication environments.

Feminism Feminist Media Studies Digital Culture Visual Cultural History Misogyny Online Hate Social Polarization Political Aesthetics

Recent Work

Regulating Femininity in the Manosphere: An Exploration of Anti-Femme Discourse in Online Misogynistic Spaces

With Karmvir Padda and Nick Ruest — Special Issue of Journal of Femininities: Digital Femininities, 2026

“All you have to do is publicly execute a few women who have lied”: Mapping the State of Online Misogyny and Feminist Digital Counterprotest in the Post-Pandemic Landscape

With Brianna I. Wiens, Karmvir Padda, and Nick Ruest — Women’s Studies in Communication, 2026

Solidarity as method: Building stronger research coalitions to counter antagonism

With Kate Bradley — Studies in Social Justice, 2025

Learn more about Shana. Google Scholar

University of Waterloo

Brianna I. Wiens

Co-Director, SIGNAL

Brianna I. Wiens’s research examines how digital platforms, algorithms, and media cultures structure gendered power, with particular focus on how misogyny, disinformation, and reactionary politics circulate online. She develops feminist digital and rhetorical methods that trace how platforms encode and amplify cultural narratives. Her current scholarship on “machine learning misogyny” examines how automated systems reproduce and intensify gendered violence through recommendation engines, deepfakes, and algorithmic personalization. Wiens also analyzes how feminist communities mobilize storytelling and collaborative digital activism to resist online harms. Leading several funded initiatives, her work bridges critical analysis, public-facing tools, and care-centered collaboration to advance more equitable technological futures.

Feminist Media Studies Technology Facilitated Gender-Based Violence Misogyny Critical Technology Digital Media Feminist Activism

Recent Work

‘Men are Very Scary Out There’: Reflections on Rape Culture, Misogyny, and #MeToo in the Bear vs. Man Social Media Trend

With Kate Bradley, Dena Huang, Nevetha Kugathas, Hannah Delamere, and Shana MacDonald — Special Issue of Feminist Encounters: Digital Activisms and Intersectionality in Context, 2026

The Future of Digital Feminism: Surviving Surveillance, Misinformation, and Machine Learning Misogyny

With Amaya Kodituwakku — IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, 2025

#Girlhood: Why Memetic Aesthetics of Hyperfemininity Matter for Feminist Media Studies

With Anna McWebb — Special Issue of the Journal of Femininities: Why Femininity Studies Matter, 2025

Learn more about Bri. Google Scholar

York University

Nick Ruest

Co-Director, SIGNAL

Nick Ruest is a librarian and researcher whose research has centered on developing and supporting computational tools and methodologies for web archives, as well as creating data collection and analysis pipelines, with a particular focus on digital preservation infrastructure that enables the study of feminist media, social justice movements, and web history at scale.

Web Archives Data Analytics Distributed Systems Information Retrieval Digital Preservation

Recent Work

Infrastructures of Listening: The ManoWhisper Podcast Analysis Pipeline

With Brianna I. Wiens, Karmvir Padda, and Shana MacDonald — Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2026

Dwelling with feminist media archives in the age of big data

With Shana MacDonald, and Brianna I. Wiens — Internet Histories, 2024

Creating order from the mess: web archive derivative datasets and notebooks

With Samantha Fritz, and Ian Milligan — Archives and Records, 2022

Learn more about Nick. Google Scholar

University of Ottawa

Jada Watson

Co-Director, SIGNAL

Jada Watson’s research explores the potential of using discographic and biographic metadata to learn more about how popular music genres form, develop, and evolve throughout history. The principal investigator of the SongData project, she is developing approaches for using information about songs and artists to explore the connections between musicians and the broader socio-cultural and institutional frameworks that govern genres. The database and dataset in development for this project will serve as the foundation of a long-term research program that seeks to use computational techniques to frame musicological inquiries about country music’s geo-cultural history, as well as issues regarding gender representation and changes in musical style.

Heritage Policies Popular Music Structures Strategies and Impacts of Cultural Industries Artistic and Cultural Heritage Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, etc.) Media Types Information Science Digital Humanities Cultural Administration Cultural Memory Women and Music Ecocriticism Representation

Recent Work

‘Changer le monde un hit à la fois’ : Programmation et diversité à CKOI.

Les Cahiers de la société québécoise de recherche en musiqu, 2023

Reproducing Inheritance: How the Country Music Association’s Award Criteria Reinforce Industry White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy.

American Music Perspectives, 2022

Billboard’s Hot Country Songs Chart and the Curation of Country Music Culture.

Special Issue of Journal of Popular Music History: Popular Music Curation, 2020

Learn more about Jada. Google Scholar

Post-Docs

University of Waterloo

Dr. Farinaz Basmechi

Postdoctoral Fellow, SIGNAL

Dr. Farinaz Basmechi is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the SIGNAL and is a feminist sociologist who holds Ph.D.s in Sociology from the University of North Texas and Feminist and Gender Studies from the University of Ottawa. Her interdisciplinary research examines gender-based violence, sexual agency and wellbeing, feminist activism, and the role of digital media and technology in shaping resistance and social change. Her current work focuses on technology-facilitated gender-based violence, online misogyny, and gender-based violence prevention. She also teaches sociology and feminist and gender studies at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Basmechi has published in First Monday (2021), Sociological Spectrum (2022), Canadian Journal of Communication (2024), and Secularism and Nonreligion (2025). Her book, Revolutionizing Culture: Iranian Women, Digital Media, and Feminist Resistance, is under contract with The Ohio State University Press.

Gender and Sexuality Digital Media Social Change and Mobilization Mixed Methodology Research Design

View Farinaz's CV Google Scholar

University of Waterloo

Dr. Laura Blanco-Murcia (she/her)

Postdoctoral Fellow, SIGNAL

Laura Blanco-Murcia is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo, who is passionate about the intersections between gender, care, sustainability, and the narratives about these topics. She holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability Management from the University of Waterloo, a Master’s in Liberal Arts in Sustainability from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Through her work, Laura finds insights to foster the emergence and growth of caring communities that prioritize human and more-than-human wellbeing over financial gains.

At SIGNAL, she is leading a qualitative project about on-campus experiences of misogyny, queerphobia, and transphobia, as well as a project that explores the contents shown in young adults’ social media feeds. She is also part of the team studying how Canadian activists are countering the Manosphere, and is developing educational tools and resources to foster Prosocial Online Communities. Her next research project explores how online narratives about caring masculinities are providing alternatives to hate-based narratives, and could enable more equal and sustainable futures. Originally from Colombia, Laura lives in Canada with her partner, her wonderful kid, and two crazy dogs.

Sustainability Care Gender Narratives Media Caring Masculinities

Recent Work

Food stories and the narrative journey to caring communities: the case of Nashira

With J. Moreno-Cruz and M. Ramos-Mejía — Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 10:1813991, 2026

The role of care in creating narratives for sustainability

With J. Moreno-Cruz — Sustainability Science 20, 1863–1881, 2025

Google Scholar

University of Toronto

Dr. Karmvir K. Padda

Postdoctoral Fellow, SIGNAL

Dr. Padda is an award-winning researcher, writer, and educator.

She is currently a SSHRC Canada Postdoctoral Research Award Fellow at the University of Toronto and holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Waterloo. She was previously a CIGI Digital Policy Hub Postdoctoral Fellow, supported through the Mitacs Accelerate program. Her doctoral research was supported and recognized through the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the P.E.O. International Scholar Award, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Emerging Scholar Award.

Her research examines online radicalization, digital extremism, misogyny, and online harms. Using mixed and computational methods, she studies how harmful ideas and communities develop across digital spaces, how gender shapes extremist narratives and violence, and how artificial intelligence, automated content moderation, platform governance, and other emerging technologies shape contemporary forms of online harm.

She is also committed to teaching, mentorship, and making research accessible and useful across academic, policy, and public settings.

Learn more about Karmvir. Google Scholar