The Student Leadership Council (SLC) at the Center for Smart Streetscapes (CS3) plays a vital role in connecting our nationwide, cross-institution student community with CS3 administration, faculty, and industry partners. These student leaders strengthen communication across the center, support the advancement of CS3’s research and mission, and expand leadership and professional development opportunities for their peers.
As part of our new interview series, we spoke with Seon Britton, the SLC’s Career Development Lead, to learn more about his academic journey, his research, and how his time on the council has shaped his future ambitions.
Seon is currently a PhD student in Sociology at The Graduate Center, CUNY, where his research explores community technology organizations. His work employs an ethnographic approach to see how organizations work across fields in fighting for digital equity.
“Centering communities has always been at the core of my work,” he shares. “I’m interested in how organizations can serve as vehicles for community agency in broader technological and social ecosystems.”
His research and work tie into his role in the SLC. As Career Development Lead, Seon has taken a front-row seat in supporting CS3’s diverse student body as they navigate post-graduate planning. He describes his time on the SLC as both collaborative and deeply enriching.
“Serving on the SLC has been incredibly informative,” Seon explains. “Working with the other council members—developing programming, identifying student needs, and designing opportunities—allowed me to engage as both a colleague and a learner. It also helped me see firsthand how CS3 and its partners are building pathways for student success.”
Through this role, Seon gained a deeper appreciation for the engineering field and its interdisciplinary challenges. He notes that developing programming for CS3 students broadened his exposure to the landscape that early-career engineers encounter, including evolving research areas, industry expectations, and emerging opportunities.
Looking ahead, Seon envisions a career that bridges academic research and real-world impact. In the next five years, he hopes to continue advancing public-interest technology, which is an area he sees enormous potential in, to align innovation with social responsibility.
“With my background in organizational research, I want to help translate academic insights into practical guidelines for technology organizations,” he says. “There is significant value in bringing research and practice together, especially when it comes to promoting safety, ethics, and accountability in technology.”
Reflecting on his time with the SLC, Seon emphasizes how meaningful the experience has been for his professional development. Beyond gaining greater familiarity with engineering theories and methods, the role gave him a window into the challenges facing today’s technology workforce, and how interdisciplinary collaboration can help address them.
“My time on the SLC strengthened my understanding of the issues that early-career engineers face and broadened my own perspective as a researcher,” he shares. “That exposure will be incredibly valuable as I move forward in my academic work.”