Dr Powell is currently working on a book about technological citizenship and governance in data cities and Internet of Things-enabled ‘sensing cities’ and working on several projects related to citizenship, cities, data and ethics. This work tries to understand the discourses, practices and governance structures that are part of our society’s orientation towards data.
Her past research projects have looked at community wireless networking and its policy impact, digital rights activism in comparative perspective (including Net Neutrality and the opposition to SOPA and ACTA legislation) and the expansion of open source, DIY and hacking culture from software to hardware to open science. She also often delivers lectures on the civic and governance implications of smart cities and Internet of Things technology projects.
Current research projects
Dr Powell is currently lead LSE investigator on the projects Values and Ethics in Innovation for Responsible Technology in Europe (VirtEU), funded by the EU H2020 programme; and Understanding Automated Decisions, funded by the Open Society Foundations.
Research associations
Dr Powell was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute from 2008 to 2010, where she worked on digital rights and internet governance issues. From 2011-2014 she was a member of the European Network of Excellence in Internet Science. In this project she studied open source hardware licensing and governance.
She is an associated researcher with the artistic research project Museum of Contemporary Commodities, where she has investigated data commodities and everyday life in cities.
She is a member of the Digital Policy Alliance working group on the Internet of Things and a member of the BSI standards-setting body on the Internet of Things.
Collaboration interests
Dr Powell is currently interested in projects and partnerships that investigate how to build ethical, reflexive Internet of Things systems, and projects that help reshape how data can be used by citizens for civic or community interest.