Cella M. Sum is an interdisciplinary researcher and Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. She is advised by Dr. Sarah Fox and is affiliated with the Tech Solidarity Lab.
Her research focuses on the future of labor. She has explored how frontline workers at community-based organizations negotiate disempowering data and tech practices, how workers resist surveillance technologies, and how and why tech workers unionize. Using community-based participatory design methods, she works with affected communities to co-create more just alternatives. Her work has been published at CSCW and CHI.
Cella holds a Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction and Design from UC Irvine and a BS in Computer Science from Shippensburg University. She is a member of Collective Action in Tech and a former tech worker organizer with Big Cartel Workers Union. She has over 15 years of industry experience in software engineering, UX research, and design.
Recent News
- Jun 2025: Served as student volunteer and co-organized the "AI Workers' Inquiry" CRAFT session at FAccT 2025 in Athens, Greece
- Jun 2025: Accepted into the CSCW 2025 Doctoral Consortium
- Jun 2025: My first-author paper, "The Future of Tech Labor: How Workers are Organizing and Transforming the Computing Industry," was conditionally accepted to CSCW 2025
- May 2025: Attended the 2025 CSST Summer Research Institute in the Adirondacks
- May 2025: Participated in the Data & Society's "What is Work Worth?" workshop
- Mar 2025: Our workshop, "From Tech Lash to Tech Fash: Strategic Reflections on a Decade of Collective Organizing in Computing," was accepted to Aarhus 2025
See the full list of updates here.