Digital Intimacy: Now and into the Future

The Digital Intimacy, Gender and Sexuality (DIGS) Lab is celebrating its 5^th anniversary with a launch for two fresh research outputs and an expert roundtable discussion. Join us, starting at 1pm, to hear about a new tool – Safety Map – developed in collaboration with scholars across the CODER network to help people choose the safest dating app for them. Then we’ll showcase a new report about LGBTQ+ intergenerational dialogue on TikTok, looking at how the platform both helps and hinders queer people in connecting across generations. 

Our roundtable panel starting at 2pm will feature a range of experts in platform studies, digital methods, and digital sexuality studies to discuss our present moment and future directions for researching digital intimacy.

How can you participate? Join us in person or online by registering for the Zoom Meeting or watching live on YouTube.

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

Alex Chartrand

Alex Chartrand is a PhD Candidate in Communication Studies at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal and is a member of the Digital Intimacy, Gender & Sexuality Lab. His interests include online social movements, queer countercultures, platform governance, algorithmic studies and alternative use of technology. His work focuses on how LGBTQ+ users develop queer algorithmic imaginaries, i.e. vernacular and situated knowledge embedded in queer trajectories. In turn, he studies how these imaginaries inform resistance practices and culture online.

Stefanie Duguay

Stefanie Duguay is the director of the DIGS Lab and has held a Concordia University Research Chair in Digital Intimacy, Gender and Sexuality. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University. Her research has involved studies of LGBTQ+ digital self-representation, dating apps, platform appropriation, social media governance, discourses of automation and algorithmic neutrality, and the role of social and mobile media in queer social landscapes. Her forthcoming book with Polity, Tinder: Digital Intimacy in the Dating App Era, will be available in November 2026.  

Hannah Jamet-Lange (she/they)

Hannah Jamet-Lange is a researcher and course instructor at the Institut für Medienwissenschaft (Media Studies Institute) at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. She received her MA in Media Studies at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Canada, and is a former member of the Digital Intimacy, Gender and Sexuality (DIGS) Lab. Centred in affect and queer theory, their research interests revolve around social media, fandom studies, and queerness. Her current research examines queer youths’ music fandom practices on TikTok, particularly in relation to politicization of fandom, expressions of emotions, and queer identity conceptions. 

David Myles

David Myles is an Assistant Professor at the Centre Urbanisation Culture Société, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) in Montréal. His research investigates the sociocultural and political implications of digital platforms, as well as the role of technologies in mediating popular and participatory cultures, with a specific interest in LGBTQ+ cultures. The development of critical methods to study digitally mediated phenomena is at the heart of his research interests, as well as the analysis of their ethical and epistemological implications.

Dunja Nešović

Dunja Nešović is a PhD candidate in Communication Studies at Concordia University in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke and a lab coordinator/research assistant at the Digital Intimacy, Gender, and Sexuality (DIGS) Lab. In her doctoral research, she investigates the mediation of lesbian desire in the convergent digital media environment, with a focus on (reality) television and social media.

Skyler Wang

Skyler Wang is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University, a Research Scientist at Handshake AI, and the Director of the Social-Centered AI (SCAI) Lab. Using mixed-methods, experimental, and STS approaches, Skyler investigates the epistemic cultures of AI and human-machine interactions in a variety of contexts. His primary empirical focus is on how digital platforms—such as network hospitality, online dating, and AI companions—shape contemporary intimacy and relationships. Skyler’s work has been featured in journals such as Nature, Big Data & Society, Information, Communication & Society, and Social Media + Society.