Mal Ahern is an Assistant Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Washington. Broadly, her research focuses on media technology, visual culture, and the history of capitalism. Her article "Cinema's Automatisms and Industrial Automation" (diacritics) won the Annette Kuhn Debut Essay Award in 2020. She has also published essays on Andy Warhol (NECSUS), mechanical drawing (World Picture), and the media history of air conditioning (Discourse, forthcoming). She recently received a fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) for the completion of her first book, Factory Forms.