PhD Affiliate research spotlight | June

Each term members of the Data Science Institute’s PhD Affiliate Network are invited to share their research at our Research Spotlight events. Our speakers this month are Felix Willuweit and Roop Bhadury

Calculated risks: the social life of humanitarian security data

Felix Willuweit, Department of International Development

In recent years, international humanitarian organisations have increasingly started to record and analyse incidents of violence against humanitarian workers and assets in databases of ‘security data’ to classify and manage risks to their staff and operations. With continuous global concerns about the number of attacks against humanitarian workers and a sense of enthusiasm about the promises of technology for humanitarian practice, security data has attracted growing interest from scholars and practitioners alike. However, there is ongoing uncertainty about its influence and potentially contradictory effects on humanitarian action. Therefore, this talk will outline a research plan for a multi-sited PhD research study focusing on the daily practices of data collection, classification, analysis and sharing through which data becomes a humanitarian resource.

Human augmentation with AI: the advent of Polywork

Roop Bhadury, Department of Management

This talk offers a scientific and optimistic vision of AI as cognitive augmentation, showing how “Polywork” empowers humans to do multiple, high‑quality, discrete blocks of work, and what that could mean for human growth at scale. Polywork asks a simple but radical question: What if one person could genuinely think through ten complex projects at once, without burning out or dumbing down? Instead of using AI as a shortcut or a replacement, Polywork treats AI as cognitive infrastructure, a system of specialised agents you orchestrate, like a CEO directing a team of minds.

About the DSI PhD Affiliate Network

We invite doctoral researchers, from all departments across LSE, who have an interest in data science and artificial intelligence to join the DSI PhD Affiliate Network; whether you are interested in applications for your research, are studying the social scientific implications of AI and data or are working on fundamental methodologies, please sign up.

LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of the London School of Economics and Political Science.