Georgia Meyer awarded British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship

We are delighted to share that Dr Georgia Meyer, Postdoctoral Research Assistant at LSE’s Data Science Institute, has been awarded a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, for her research project: On Digital Heterotopias: Tracing Ideologies in Decentralising Infrastructures.

Dr Meyer recently completed her PhD in Information Systems and Innovation (ISI) in the Department of Management at LSE.

Commenting on the award, Dr Meyer said: "I'm delighted that the fellowship will allow me to stay working with the ISI group at LSE - defined by its ambition and commitment to formulating and answering tough questions of societal relevance. It's a pivotal time to be building new sensemaking frameworks to understand and shape rapid technological development whilst striving for clear eyed assessment of both opportunities and risks."

All Postdoctoral Fellows must arrange a mentor at their host institution. Dr Meyer's mentor will be Professor Youngjin Yoo, of the Department of Management's Information Systems and Innovation Faculty Research Group.

Her research, which will be funded by her £384,524 award, will explore the influence of ideology on system design, particularly in settings where engineers have strong convictions about themes related to personal data, sovereignty and decentralisation.

According to Dr Meyer, the research also has a speculative element, as while innovation in this space continues to gain momentum, these systems have not yet been widely adopted. It poses questions of existing theory when it comes to ideas about value, control and responsibility in what might be thought of as "inverted" personal data economies of the future.

The British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships is a three-year award made to an annual cohort of outstanding early-career researchers in the humanities or social sciences, with the aim to strengthen their experience of research and teaching in an academic environment.