Pride, the Internet, and the Pandemic: A June 22 Virtual Panel

Shaka McGlotten | professor, media studies & anthropology, SUNY Purchase

Shaka McGlotten is an anthropologist and maker who stages encounters between Black study, queer theory, media, and art. They have written and lectured widely on networked intimacies and messy computational entanglements as they interface with QTPOC lifeworlds.

They are the author of Virtual Intimacies: Media, Affect, and Queer Sociality (SUNY Press, 2013) and Dragging: Or, in the Drag of a Queer Life (Routledge, 2021), in addition to dozens of articles and chapters. They are also the co-editor of two edited collections, Black Genders and Sexualities (with Dana-ain Davis) (Palgrave, 2012) and Zombies and Sexuality (with Steve Jones) (McFarland, 2014). They are currently at work on Black Data, which looks to queer of color artists and their engagements with various contemporary technologies. Their work has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Creative Capital | The Andy Warhol Foundation, and Data & Society.

Peaks Krafft | lead, Creative Computing Institute at University of Arts London

Dr. Peaks Krafft (they/them) is Senior Lecturer and MA Internet Equalities Course Leader at the UAL Creative Computing Institute. Dr. Krafft undertakes critically-oriented computer science research, academic organising, and community organising, especially recently on four issues in higher education and tech: social impacts of technology; personal and institutional accountability; anti-racism in organisations, and conflicts of interest from tech funding.

Dr. Krafft's work is animated by an interest in who and what is missing when we talk about or are involved in data science and computing. How do we move beyond the terms equality, diversity and inclusion, to build counter-power to the modes of oppression in society that are replicated within tech? For many who are marginalised, the status quo remains a central barrier to being present and progressing in the fields of computer science and data science. Dr Krafft is equally occupied with how work is organised in tech and higher education, as with doing work in these sectors.

Nim Ralph | community organiser, and freelance trainer, facilitator and writer

Nim Ralph is a trans activist and freelance writer, trainer & facilitator. They campaign actively for queer and trans rights and have organised around issues related to anti-racism, disability and the environment. Nim has held a number of strategic roles in the anti-racist, LGBTQI, women’s and disability sectors in the UK. They co-founded QTIPOC London ( for Queer, Trans and Intersex People of Colour), Purple Rain Collective and are an inaugural member of the Edge Fund. Previous to this they co-founded and directed So We Stand; an organisation working with communities on the frontlines of injustice and linking environmental, social and racial justice in the UK. This won Nim an Olive Morris Memorial Award for activism and was named a Guardian “Youth Climate Leader.”

And moderator Justin O'Kelly of Mozilla.

Justin O'Kelly manages executive communications for Mozilla. He's a former BBC and CNN International journalist and the author of two queer sci-fi novels, "The Smell of Good Decisions" and "The Smell of Bad Decisions."