ABOUT ME

I’m an interdisciplinary researcher interested in interaction, language and technology. I am an assistant professor in computer science and digital humanities at Durham University.

 

My work combines approaches from linguistics, psychology, human-computer interaction and data science to understand how humans communicate in increasingly technologically mediated contexts. This encompasses studies of how information and opinion are shared and negotiated online, through to studies of how humans interact with AI systems. Recently I have been examining the societal and ethical implications of language-based technologies, such as dialogue agents and other natural language processing applications. I am interested the linguistic expression of bias and prejudice in textual datasets, and what this means for developing equitable and socially just processes and systems and intersectional feminist approaches to data science and machine learning.

 

After completing a Master’s in English Literature at Oxford, I began working on various digital projects, with a particular focus on information architecture and user experience design. I then completed a masters in Media & Arts Technology and a PhD within the Computational Linguistics Lab at Queen Mary, University of London. My thesis focused on (dis)agreement and stance in dialogue, combining approaches from experimental psychology and computational linguistics. I completed a placement with BBC R&D working with the World Service Audio Archive.

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Before joining Durham, I was based at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, working on the Giving Voice to Digital Democracies project. I held postdoctoral positions at the Universities of York (Digital Creativity Labs) and Newcastle (Open Lab). These positions have enabled me to explore the role of digital technologies and machine learning in supporting more meaningful and engaging interactions with data.

 

Over the past 10+ years I have also developed workshops, courses and public engagement activities to support creative engagements with technology and data. My applied research and creative practice has involved collaborations with arts and culture organisations, such as Barbican, Invisible Dust, Guerilla Science, York Mediale, Kino Klalssika, with events held at festivals like Green Man and Shambala.