Thomas Pickering

Thomas Pickering is a Lecturer in the Writing, Rhetoric and Professional Communication Program. Before joining MIT, he taught in the Computer Science department and in the Professional Writing and Technical Communication program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research interests include rhetorical code studies, intellectual property, and writing practices in computing professions. His dissertation studies cooperative, user-owned social media platforms as spaces where writers and developers are redefining what it means to write in response to the data-mining and content moderation policies of Big Tech. He serves as the Assistant Editor of Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. His most recent work appeared in the journal College English.