Noel Chung

Noel Chung is a Researcher affiliated with the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, where she contributes to the Smart Forests project. Her work bridges digital technology studies and urban sociology, focusing on the interplay between platform economies, smart infrastructure, and human practices.

• Education: MSc in Media, Communication and Development from LSE; BA in Management from Peking University.
• Prior Experience: Management consulting in Seoul, analytics consulting in Seoul and London, and humanitarian aid work in Nairobi.

Her research investigates how digital technologies are interpreted, contested, or repurposed across different contexts, particularly through infrastructural practices in smart cities and platform-mediated food delivery systems. She employs ethnographic methods to analyze the sociotechnical dynamics of mobility, labor, and urban governance.

Recent publications explore robotised delivery infrastructure, platform urbanism, and community-led forest technologies, reflecting interdisciplinary engagement with urban studies, digital sociology, and environmental data practices. She also examines the emotional costs of digital self-optimization in gig economies.

• Projects: Smart Forests (University of Cambridge), ethnographic studies of Baemin's infrastructuralisation in Seoul.