Computer science majors live in a world of binary numbers and firewalls, with little contact with other humans—right? Alas, that old stereotype doesn’t account for the reality that computer science is very human: how humans interact with computers, how we engage with AI, even how we have access to mental health care or safe drinking water.
That marriage between computing and community became the focus of recent LSA graduate Matthew Bilik over the course of his undergraduate career. In addition to his study of computer science, he leaned in even further to the human element by adding a second major in sociology.
The summer before Bilik started college, he picked up a book that influenced his professional trajectory forever. Sheila Jasanoff’s The Ethics of Invention taught him that humans shape technologies as much as they shape us—and that we have the ability to influence and shape technologies that align with our ideas of the future.
In addition to his double majors, Bilik also picked up a minor in science, technology, and society studies. He was curious about the ways in which “innovations in computing have changed the way that we communicate, the way we write, that way that we learn, the way that we do business, and the way that we govern.”
At U-M, Bilik’s fascination with technology and society led him to an internship with the City of New York’s Office of Information Privacy. “I wanted to understand where New York City’s municipal privacy statutes came from, and assess how the meaning of privacy changed over time,” he says. Municipal privacy can include everything from protecting citizens’ privacy using encryption to ensuring that personally identifiable information is not sold or hacked.
This professional experience led him to write an honors thesis about the National Data Center Proposal of 1965 and the fallout over data privacy that ensued. He applied his interest to his extracurricular activities, too—he worked as a data journalist and as the data editor at The Michigan Daily, building interactive maps, guides, and other forms of data visualizations for popular consumption.
This fall, Bilik will begin a Ph.D. program in human-computer interaction at the University of Washington-Seattle. He will fondly remember his time in Ann Arbor, particularly playing pickup soccer with Kerrytown Kickabout. This casual weekly tournament had its participants waking up for 10 a.m. soccer games every Sunday, sometimes through rain and snow. Nevertheless, Bilik says, “becoming a Kerrytown kicker was one of my most rewarding college experiences.”
Bilik thinks human beings can steer technology to develop the future they want to see and that an ideal version of that future includes technologies created by and for happy, healthy humans and collective effort—something we will all take part in building.
Photography by Doug Coombe
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