On the latest episode of AnthroPuzzled, we sit down with Dawn Nafus, a social anthropologist who spent over twenty years working as a research scientist and leader at Intel.
In her job as a research scientist Dawn spent a lot of time in the lab figuring out new product innovation. She had to research which technologies were the most important to produce for consumer demands. Through user research and applied ethnography, she helped guide decisions about product design, market strategy, and innovation across global contexts. As her role evolved, Dawn also became deeply involved in governance work, helping develop ethical guardrails around AI, bias, and technological harm as these systems moved from research labs into the world.
She reflects on what it looks like to do anthropology inside a large corporation, how research priorities change with seniority, and why anthropological ways of thinking are especially well suited to identifying ethical risks, questioning assumptions, and shaping more responsible technologies.
Listen now to learn about anthropology in the tech industry and why it matters.
