Professor Ribes joined the CCT faculty in the fall of 2008 as a Visiting Assistant Professor. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Science Studies from the University of California at San Diego (2006), and came to Georgetown University from the University of Michigan where he did a post-doc at the School of Information. His research and teaching interests, which lie at the intersection of sociology, philosophy and history, have focused on the emerging phenomena of Cyberinfrastructure (or networked information technologies for the support of science) and how these are transforming the practice and organization of contemporary knowledge production.

Ribes has several articles published in major peer-reviewed journals, including Information and Organization, and the Journal of the Association of Information Systems. He has a chapter in the 2008 MIT Press edited volume (Olson, Zimmerman, Bos) 'Scientific Collaboration on the Internet'. He is also co-editing a special issue of the Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (JCSCW) on Cyberinfrastructure and eScience. Ribes is currently a PI on two National Science Foundation grants studying the consequences of novel information technologies on the work of scientists and exploring new patterns of distributed collaboration.

As a member CCT, Professor Ribes teaches the course “Infrastructure Studies: Knowledge, Distribution and Power” and a variety of other offerings, such as introductions to Science and Technology Studies, and methodology courses on grounded theory and qualitative studies of technology.