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    • Professor Gina Neff

    Professor of Technology & Society
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    • Professor
    Gina Neff

    Professor of Technology & Society

    Profile Contents

    About

    Gina Neff is the Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge, and is the Professor of Technology & Society at the University of Oxford until the end of 2022. Her books include Venture Labor (MIT Press 2012), Self-Tracking (MIT Press 2016) and Human-Centered Data Science (MIT Press 2022).

    Her research focuses on the effects of the rapid expansion of our digital information environment on workers and workplaces and in our everyday lives. Professor Neff holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and advises international organisations including UNESCO, OECD and the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society. She chairs the International Scientific Committee of the UK’s Trusted Autonomous Systems programme and is a member of the Strategic Advisory Network for the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council.

    Her academic research has won both engineering and social sciences awards. She also led the team that won the 2021 Webby for the best educational website on the Internet, for the A to Z of AI, which has reached over a million people in 17 different languages.

    Areas of Interest for Doctoral Supervision

    Professor Neff is no longer taking on doctoral students.

    Research Interests

    Innovation, work, organisations, culture, communication, theory, qualitative methods, critical data studies, science and technology studies.

    Positions at the OII

    • Professor of Technology & Society, October 2020 -
    • Director of DPhil Programme, January 2017 - September 2019
    • Associate Professor, July 2016 - October 2020
    • Senior Research Fellow, July 2016 - October 2020

    Contact

    gsn23@cam.ac.uk
    +44 (0)1865 612778
    @ginasue
    ginaneff.com
    CV
    Papers
    ORCID

    Research

    Projects

    Integrity Statement

    In the past five years work my work and the work of my students has been financially supported by UK taxpayers, UK Economic and Social Research Council, UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Google and Microsoft. As part of my science communication and policy outreach, I have served in an advisory capacity with paid talks, paid training or unpaid service on an advisory board or working group with the following organizations: AI Now, Configuring Light Project at LSE, Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA (C2I2), University of Copenhagen, the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Data & Society Research Institute, DigiMed, GMG Ventures, IAC, ING Bank, Minderoo Foundation, Northern Illinois University, Understanding Public Uses of Data and Dashboards Project at UC Irvine, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Royal Society, Saïd School of Business Executive Education, Structure Tone, University of Calgary Gairdner Lecture, VIRT-EU H2020 Project, The Women’s Forum for Economy & Society,  Zinc VC.

    I have provided consultancy services for ESRC, UNESCO, OECD and the IAB.

    I serve as the chair of the scientific committee of UKRI’s Trusted Autonomous Systems programme and on the board of the ESRC’s Strategic Advisory Network. I chair the board of advisors for the social media start-up Bright and advise two Oxford student-based entrepreneurship groups, Oxford Entrepreneurs and the Christ Church Entrepreneurs Circle.

    Recordings

    News & Press

    Featured Report

    Reconfigure: Feminist Action Research in Cybersecurity

    By Julia Slupska, Scarlet Dawson Duckworth, Gina Neff, Nayana Prakash, Selina Cho, Linda Ma, Laura Shepherd, Hayyu Imanda, Hubert Au, Antonella Perini, and Romy Minko

    The discourse around cybersecurity can often seem academic and exclusive. The Reconfigure project aims to build a feminist alternative and this report sets out findings from a pilot study applying “action research” methods to cybersecurity questions.

    Report cover: reconfigure: Feminist Action Research in Cybersecurity

    Blogs & Press releases

    Press Coverage

    Teaching

    Current Students

    Past Students

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    Ben Ferschli

    DPhil student, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford

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    Elodie Fichet

    Industry

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    Dr Brittany Fiore-Gartland

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