Aleksandra Krystyna Theresa Krotoski (born October 22, 1974) is a broadcaster, journalist and social psychologist based in the United States who writes and broadcasts about social aspects of technology and interactivity.[3][4][5][6][7][8] She currently presents the
BBC Radio 4 series The Digital Human.
Early life
Krotoski was born a U.S. citizen in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but spent her early years in
New Orleans, Louisiana.[9] Her parents, Wojciech Antoni "Al" Krotoski (1937–2016) and his then-wife Danuta (née Gwozdziowski), were Polish-American scientists who played a key role in revealing
hypnozoites as the true mechanism of
malarial relapse.[9][10]
Education
Krotoski graduated with a BA in psychology from
Oberlin College in Ohio in 1996.[11][12] After moving to the UK and becoming a television presenter, she returned to university to study
social psychology at the
University of Surrey, where she completed an MSc in 2004[13] and a
PhD in 2009.[1] Her PhD thesis on social influence in Second Life[1] examined "how information spreads around the
social networks of the World Wide Web."[14]
In September 2006 she was named one of the games industry's 100 most influential women by NextGen.biz[19] and in November 2006 she was named one of the "Top Ten Girl Geeks" by
CNET, two spots behind fictional character
Lisa Simpson.[20]
In February 2010, she presented The Virtual Revolution for
BBC Two. This TV documentary series was described by the
BBC as charting "two decades of profound change since the invention of the World Wide Web, weighing up the huge benefits and the unforeseen downsides."[21] She also presented an accompanying four-part podcast series on the
BBC World Service.
As of November 2010, she was Researcher in Residence at the
British Library and curator of the Growing Knowledge digital exhibition at the library,[22] and a visiting fellow at the
London School of Economics.[23]
She presented the Guardian podcast Tech Weekly and contributes to
guardian.co.uk. She formerly contributed occasional stories to The Guardian's now defunct Online print section (which was later renamed Technology), and was one of the core contributor's to the Guardian's original Gamesblog.
Since 2011, she has presented the
BBC Radio 4 series Digital Human, which examines the relationship between human behavior and the use of the World Wide Web.[24]
On July 4, 2013, her book Untangling the Web[25] was published. It was based on "thirteen years of research"[26] concurrently with her previous activities. It received reviews in the journal Nature[27] and
The Observer.[28]
Personal life
Krotoski married
Ben Hammersley in April 2014;[29] their daughter was born in September 2014.[30]
^Krotoski, A. (2011). "Wikileaks and the New, Transparent World Order". The Political Quarterly. 82 (4): 526–530.
doi:
10.1111/j.1467-923X.2011.02250.x.