PROGRESS Distinguished Speaker Series: Dr. Desmond Upton Patton

Prevent Gun Violence: Research, Empowerment, Strategies & Solutions (PROGRESS) presents Desmond Upton Patton, Ph.D.. as part of its Distinguished Speaker Series. Dr. Patton’s talk will focus on his forthcoming book, a research memoir and social critique that traces the life, death, and afterlives of Gakirah Barnes, a Black teenage girl in Chicago, and what her story reveals about how gun violence, grief, and survival unfold across both neighborhood streets and social media timelines.

Drawing on more than a decade of interdisciplinary work at the intersection of social work, communication, and data science, Dr. Patton’s book argues that social media is not just a backdrop to youth life. It is an infrastructure that shapes how emotions, conflict,
belonging, and harm are expressed and interpreted. In his talk, Dr. Patton uses the concept of digital streets, showing how online and offline worlds collapse into one another, and how the same platforms that can create connection and joy can also intensify risk, accelerate violence, and invite surveillance.

Desmond Upton Patton, PhD, is the 31st PIK University Professor, School of Social Policy &
Practice and the Waldo E. Johnson Jr. Professor, Annenberg School for Communication,
University of Pennsylvania

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