Laura Norén is a doctoral candidate in sociology at New York University. Her dissertation – Collaboration in Design – interrogates the relationship between the tools designers use and their collaborative practices across field sites including chamber music rehearsals, professional kitchens, graphic design studios, electric vehicle labs, and architectural offices. She draws on social psychology, science and technology studies, organizational, and cultural theory to broaden explanations about the role of technology in both creative and routine processes.

Prior to beginning her dissertation research, she co-edited Toilet: The Public Restroom and the Politics of Sharing, with Harvey Molotch. Toilet examines the space where plumbing infrastructure brings social taboos around gender, hygiene, sexuality, class, and citizenship into the shared space of the public restroom. In particular, her contribution focuses on the way that past design decisions impact the daily lives of New York city cab drivers and the way that future designs might increase safety and accommodation of diversity through unisex provisioning.

For the past three years she has been writing the blog Graphic Sociology at The Society Pages which offers a critical analysis of information graphics for social science data.