Primarily, my research examines how the sensory experiences and imagination of makers, be they artists, developers, engineers, or co-creating audiences, influence the adoption of emerging technology and media practices. I work alongside creative practitioners, borrowing from their artistic techniques to expand my research toolkit. Through my work, I advocate a criticality that is unafraid to cross disciplinary borders and will keep open channels for a variety of voices to begin dialogue and co-produce knowledge.
My research has been used to inform thought leadership in business. Specifically, I have produced branding and strategy guidance for businesses adopting new technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR), emphasising how to address accessibility during digital transformation. In talks and workshops, I sought to widen organisations’ research capabilities by introducing multisensory research methods that challenged the centrality of vision in data collection. Eager to share my research with wider audiences, I am drawing on past transnational journalistic experience to produce multimedia content in English, Spanish, French, and Tamil.
Currently, I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at University College London (UCL), and I am collaborating with advisors in the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art. My PhD research, funded by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership, led me to Bristol, England, where I am studying the experiences of artists who are newly making extended reality (XR) content. I ask why creatives make XR content, and how they form and reform their ideas about what and who XR is for.
In previous research, conducted as part of a Masters in Anthropology, I studied with storytellers in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Here I explored how storytellers’ experiences of performing stories impacted their engagement with and representation of the past. Before 2016, while an undergraduate student at Cambridge University, I investigated how vision was being reimagined by audio describers and sight-impaired theatregoers in the West End.
And that’s only the story so far! Please get in touch if you want to be part of what’s coming up ….
