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Richard S. Lewis

Richard S. Lewis Associate Dean of University of Washington Libraries, UW Bothell & Cascadia College

Richard S. Lewis has been working in academic libraries since 2004. He joined the University of Washington Libraries in January of 2023. Previously, he was the library director at Prescott College, where he also served as faculty director of the Arts & Humanities as well as the Social Justice Studies programs. He completed an interdisciplinary doctorate in Belgium and a post-doctorate in France investigating how we are constituted through the media we use and the ways technologies both enable and constrain us. Richard has situated his research within a broader context of sociocultural, temporal, embodied, and place-based relations. Specifically, he has analyzed the experience of taking museum selfies within a complexity of relations. Richard’s dissertation won the 2021 Harrold Innis Award for Best Dissertation in Media Ecology. His subsequent book, Technology, Media, Literacy, and the Human Subject: A Posthuman Approach was peer-reviewed and published in June 2021 by Open Book Publishers in the UK.

He has also worked in two community colleges, teaching welding at Linn-Benton in Oregon and Cisco Networking at Yavapai College in Arizona. He grew up in Lynnwood, WA and completed his undergraduate English Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle, campus. He earned his Master of Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona focusing on the usability of technology.