Postmodern literary critic N. Katherine Hayles is known for her work concerning the relationship between literature, science and technology. Hayles holds advanced degrees in both Chemistry and English, and her early work orchestrates the play of resonances between contemporary scientific paradigms and literature. Her Avenali lecture addressed the ways that processes of signification change as we move from a culture of writing by hand or on typewriters—producing “durable marks”—to writing on computers, which generate “flickering signifiers.”

Professor Hayles is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEH Fellowships, a Rockefeller Residential Fellowship at Bellagio, a fellowship at the National Humanities Center and two Presidential Research Fellowships from the University of California. She has taught at Duke University, UCLA, University of Iowa, University of Missouri–Rolla, the California Institute of Technology, and Dartmouth College.