Laura Herman is a student on the DPhil in Information, Communication & the Social Sciences, and was previously a student on the MSc in Social Science of the Internet.

Laura is a DPhil student on the Information, Communication, & the Social Sciences course, having recently completed an MSc in the Social Science of the Internet. Her MSc thesis research, supervised by Professor Gina Neff, took a mixed-methods approach to produce a viewer-defined conceptualization of online digital creativity. Laura’s DPhil research examines the role of algorithms in artistic curation, perception, and creation. She takes an inclusive and international approach with a particular focus on the Global South and people with disabilities. To this end, she is affiliated with Payal Arora’s FemLab based out of Erasmus University Rotterdam, which does work with low-income communities worldwide.

Laura is also User Experience Research Lead at Adobe, where she leads a team focused on researching emerging creative technologies & platforms. Previous creative applications that she’s worked on have been acknowledged as Apple’s “App of the Day” and as a Webby People’s Choice Award winner.

In previous research positions at Intel and Harvard, she has studied multisensory user experiences in ubiquitous computing, computer vision, and VR/AR environments. Previously, she’s published papers on immersive drawing experiences, afrofeminist virtual environments, and multimodal spatial computing interactions. Her undergraduate research at Princeton University, from which she graduated with honors in Neuroscience & Psychology, investigated the perceptual expertise of artists and was awarded the George A. Miller Prize in Cognitive Science.

A common thread runs through Laura’s research: an investigation of how emerging technology influences human creativity. Her understanding of the creation process has been deepened by her own artistic practice, and she has exhibited projects at the Tate and Ars Electronica. Laura also sits on the Board of Trustees for two UK-based arts organizations: Eastside, which provides creative education for historically marginalized youths, and the Old Fire Station, which serves as an artistic hub for people experiencing homelessness.

Research interests

Creativity; design research; digital art; algorithms; Global South; accessibility; inclusive research