Biography
I.B. (Ian) Laughbaum is a Ph.D. student in the department of Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. They hold a Master’s in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement from New York University. I.B.’s major research questions center around the interrelation between marine biological scientific practice and popular culture, namely the influence that mass media products have on laboratory practices, scientific writing, and conservationist discourses. Their other research interests include game studies, the carnivalesque, interspecies relations, the history of evolutionary theory, and pornography studies.