Elliott Hauser

Elliott Hauser is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Information and co-founder of the coding education company Trinket. His research focuses on how information systems shape social reality, with a particular emphasis on robotics and sociotechnical systems. He co-leads the Living and Working With Robots project, a transdisciplinary initiative deploying robots on the UT Austin campus to study their societal impacts. Hauser holds a PhD in Information Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Royster Society of Fellows.

His research interests include the interplay between information and agency in technical contexts, such as robotics laboratories and real-world deployments. Key themes include documental agency, computational timekeeping, and the ethical implications of classificatory systems. He employs qualitative, theoretical, and sociotechnical methods to explore these topics.

Hauser teaches courses on social informatics, datafication, and programming for informatics. He actively advises doctoral students in information science and related fields, emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and skill development. His work also extends to improving methodologies for convergent research, including participatory observation and memory practices in interdisciplinary teams.

Recent projects include studying nurses’ perspectives on care robots, analyzing human-robot encounters using video-based methods, and investigating the production of scientific facts through processes of 'forgetting.' His work has been supported by grants from initiatives like Good Systems at UT Austin.

Hauser has published widely on topics ranging from robotics ethics to the foundations of information science. He is a sought-after mentor for postdoctoral researchers and doctoral students, offering structured guidance on academic success and career development.