Internet of Things (IoT) devices are increasingly integrated into new construction and legacy buildings. However, the insertion of IoT into buildings increases their cybersecurity vulnerability. While IoT security issues are ubiquitous across devices, a foundational issue for cybersecurity in buildings is the organizational friction due to the increasing integration between Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT), called IT/OT convergence. These two technological systems are embedded in the siloed institutional histories and work practices that historically managed these technologies: Operations and Management (O&M) and IT. This siloed evolution generated different organizational structures and cultures that facilitate a responsibility vacuum in organizations around IoT cybersecurity. Industry stakeholders suggest that stronger collaboration between O&M and IT could mitigate these challenges. However, improving collaboration requires multi-disciplinary knowledge work and task coordination that fits the policy and organizational contexts of O&M and IT professionals. This project seeks to identify different interactions between macro-level legal policies and formal organizational policies and procedures, and how micro-level daily work practices support the knowledge work and task coordination needed to improve O&M and IT collaboration around IoT cybersecurity. To tackle this subject, our team is undertaking a multi-method qualitative study of three parts: (1) ethnographic study of IOT cybersecurity practices by IT and O&M departments at three small, medium, and large universities in Washington state: UW Bothell, Western Washington University, and UW; (2) 25 expert interviews with IT and O&M cybersecurity professionals working in universities across the United States; (3) 15 case studies of universities in the Pacific Northwest region. The data collection methods for these three parts are observations in the workplace, interviews, and document analysis.The research being presented here will consist of two master inventories of (1) policies addressing cybersecurity, IoT device security, data privacy; and (2) smart city initiatives in the United States.

Judaism has a long history in Yemen and the Horn of Africa, with community folklores and oral histories often tracing their origins to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and a textual history which highlights unique cultural and religious practices and communal resilience. However, the Jewish communities of Yemen and the Horn of Africa are often underrepresented in sources on Jewish history or presented with sensationalist, Orientalist tropes. Similarly, Ge’ez, Amharic, and Judeo-Yemeni Arabic are significantly understudied in Jewish Studies and in mainstream linguistics and literary studies more generally. In this project, I will develop a digital exhibit using Google Sites or Omeka about the history and culture of the Yemenite Jewish community and the Ethiopian Jewish community known as Beta Israel. I will also discuss the Jewish-origin foundation myths for the Somali Yibir clan and the implications of this legend within broader Somali and Jewish contexts. In the online exhibit, I will incorporate multilingual and multimedia elements, including historical work on Yemenite Judeo-Arabic and Beta Israel Ge’ez scriptures and texts, trade documents showing these communities in context, and modern cultural projects with which Yemeni and Ethiopian Jews, the vast majority of whom emigrated to Israel in the second half of the twentieth century, have navigated their often-marginalized status and moves toward integration/assimilation or cultural preservation. In this interdisciplinary project drawing on the tools of the digital humanities while using language as a lens for historical study, I hope to present an innovative perspective on the role of oral and written literatures in the formation of peoplehood and of Jewish identity specifically, and to contribute an underrepresented angle to the broader body of digital Jewish history.