I am a Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction and Community Technologies at Open Lab, Newcastle University. I have a background in the social sciences and my PhD in Digital Civics was interdisciplinary across the School of Politics and the School of Computing.
My PhD work explored how social theory ideals are enacted through sociotechnical interventions, drawing on political theory and deliberative democracy research to examine the role of civil society and other facets of active citizenship in shaping their communities.
My work involves taking a place-based, participatory and action-led approach to collaboration with a range of community organisations, carrying out ethnographic field work and designing, deploying and evaluating novel consultation technologies, concentrating on the role of stakeholders, and the meaningfulness and validity of data as part of campaigning, consulting, and everyday life.
My research, published in CHI and CSCW, has investigated the role of the researcher, and stakeholder power and influence during technology deployments related to local decision-making, explored the interplay between data, knowledge and evidence in local-level policymaking, on the creation of spaces for civic discourse, and on the way citizen-led organisations can create resources for democratic action through configuring participation during local consultation.
I was an Innovation Fellow on the EPSRC Centre for Digital Citizens – Next Stage Digital Economy Centre (2020-2023) leading projects on Disinformation and Rural Informatics.
I was the Community Researcher for Not-Equal, an EPSRC Network+ on Social Justice through the Digital Economy (2018-2020). The project aimed to establish interdisciplinary innovative methods and technologies through a collaborative partnership-based approach.
For more information, see my Newcastle University profile.
My up-to-date publication list is on Google Scholar. Please get in touch on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Civic Probes: a method for designing civic technologies with communities
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Rural informatics
Creating a community panel to review HCI research proposals
Ambit: From creating spaces for civic discourse to creating resources for action
It’s Our Future: putting young people at the centre of building their future
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Not-Equal: Exploring social justice in the digital economy
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Data:In Place: Making open data work for communities
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2024
Socio-digital Rural Resilience: An Exploration of Information Infrastructures Within and Across Rural Villages During Covid-19
2024 – Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Civic Probes: A Method That Embeds Questions of Civic Infrastructure and Participation
2024 – Interactions
The Potential and Implications of Generative AI on HCI Education
2024 – EduCHI '24: 6th Annual Symposium on HCI Education
Design Implications for a Social and Collaborative Understanding of online Information Assessment Practices, Challenges and Heuristics
2024 – Proceedings of 22nd European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
2021
Opening research commissioning to civic participation: creating a community panel to review the social impact of HCI research proposals
2021 – CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2020
From Creating Spaces for Civic Discourse to Creating Resources for Action
2020 – Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’20
2018
Making open data work for civic advocacy
2018 – Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Neighbourhood Data: Exploring the Role of Open Data in Locally Devolved Policymaking Processes
2018 – Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Assessing the Potential of Mini-Publics to Promote Evidence Uptake in Social Policy and Practice
2018 – Nesta
2017
Community Conversational: Supporting and Capturing Deliberative Talk in Local Consultation Processes
2017 – CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
2016
Reflections on Deploying Distributed Consultation Technologies with Community Organisations
2016 – CHI '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Overcoming Inequalities in Citizen Participation in Participatory Budgeting
2016 – Edinburgh City Council