Karli Gibson - School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics

LINAS scholars Karli Gibson, Josh Weston, Marc Elliott, Felix Elliott and Caragh Duffy were invited to take part in a Critical Artificial Intelligence Symposium on 28–29 May 2025.  The interdisciplinary event explored the harms and possibilities of AI, as well as potential solutions to the present challenges AI poses.  It brought together computer scientists, philosophers, economists, political scientists, and engineers to debate the political economy of AI and its wider social transformations.

Marc Elliott - School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

In the final months of my PhD, I have been not only busy piecing my thesis together but also publishing & engaging with the wider research community!  In May, I (along with a number of other LINAS scholars) attended and participated the Critical AI Symposium hosted at Queen’s University Belfast (my report on the event will be available soon), two of my hip and cool accountability papers were published and I managed to run Copenhagen marathon (new PB!!!).

In June, I was off to Chicago to attend the IEEE ETHICS-2025 Conference, where I presented and published an exciting paper on AI & uncertainty in the public sector .

At the end of June, I took a quick stop at Sheffield Hallam University to support an undergraduate team which I had taught throughout the previous term, where their project was selected as finalists in the Engineers Without Borders competition!  Then off to Greece for the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, where I presented my thesis research findings and held a social evening for students and postgrads to meet.

July and August were thankfully quieter, allowing me to focus on my PhD, but we commenced the LINAS Python training program to help other scholars develop their coding abilities.  I enjoyed supporting the teaching on this.

As I look forward, I have recently been accepted for two more conferences to present papers at to round off my summer, the first at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on Human-AI Societal Decision Making and the second at ACM AI, Ethics and Society in Madrid to present some cool work on LLMs and law (publication (hopefully!) forthcoming). 

This about rounds off my final eventful Summer as a LINAS Doctoral Scholar.”

David Mark – School of Law

David had a journal article accepted to the Politics and Governance Journal. 

The article is titled “Generative AI in Governance: Balancing Innovation and Accountability”.  The article explores elements of David’s thesis, including a Bacchi WPR (What’s the problem represented to be) inspired analysis of how the three digital empires, the EU, US and China, are regulating algorithmic decision-making in the public sector

Anna Montgomery – School of Law

“I attended the SLS Conference 2025 at the University of Leeds. On Tuesday, the 2nd of September, I presented my PhD research to the Family Law Panel that was convened by Professor Andy Hayward and Dr Dafni Lima. My presentation was titled 'Intimate Digital Hostage Taking: A New Method of Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse.'  I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and received constructive feedback that I can utilise moving forward.     

I also presented at the Self Under Siege Conference at QUB, presenting on my PhD project. My presentation was titled 'Intimate Digital Hostage Taking: A New Method of Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse.'”

James Sweeney – School of Law

James attended the Good IT ACM 5^th International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good in Antwerp, Belgium.  This conference was a truly interdisciplinary gathering of experts in the technological and social sciences.  It presented a great opportunity to network and hear from experts on the current challenges facing technology.  It is especially interesting to hear the opinions on regulation from those who are not from a legal background.

Josh Weston – Maths and Physics

In June, I presented the results of my recent research at the European Astronomical Society meeting in Cork.

I also had the opportunity that same month to attend the Astrostatistics Workshop held by the University of Crete in Heraklion.

In July, I attended the National Astronomy Meeting in Durham and presented my work there.  I was also able to secure funding from the University of Oxford's Centre for Cosmological Studies to visit their astrophysics department for an extended period this semester.

Nora Polloni-Gallagher – School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics

Nora presented her research at this year's UKAPA Doctoral Conference.  The UK Public Administration Association's conference was held at Ulster University, Belfast, from 10–12 September 2025.  Nora presented her research on AI implementation in the public service, titled: "AI vs. Human Advice: How Public Servants Interact with AI-enabled Systems".

Kat Pittalis – School of Law

Began her post-PhD journey by moving to London after accepting a new role at A&O Shearman.  She is looking forward to applying the knowledge and skills she gained throughout her PhD to her new role as a Graduate Technology Analyst.  Throughout the two years of this graduate role, Kat will do multiple rotations across different departments specialising in legal technology.

Anna Hollis - School of Psychology

 I presented at the Finnish Anthropological Society’s 50th anniversary conference in Helsinki (16–18 June 2025), themed Comparisons.  My paper explored interdisciplinarity in anthropology, focusing on the ways my project bridges anthropology, psychology, medicine, and technology studies, as well as the methodological challenges and opportunities this creates.”

I also presented preliminary survey findings at the Conference of the Consortium of European Research on Emotions (CERE 2025) in Grenoble (July 16-18), which provided valuable feedback from a cross-disciplinary audience of psychologists and emotion researchers.

Samantha Darragh – School of Psychology

I submitted my first paper to the Journal of Judgment and Decision Making in June and received notification this month to make revisions as per reviewer recommendations and resubmit.  The paper is a proposed replication of the Dietvorst et al. (2015) paper, which provides the strongest empirical evidence to date of performance-contingent algorithm aversion.  As both of the research studies I have completed so far have failed to replicate the effect, and given the mixed findings in the research literature that fail to explain why, we have proposed that performing a pre-registered replication that is as close to the original study as possible will allow us to assess whether the behavioural phenomenon still occurs in the exact parameters as previously found.  Alternatively, attitudinal changes over the intervening decade since the study was published may mean that the original effect no longer replicates, or that the effect has diminished.”

Caragh Duffy – School of Law

This July I attended the Law and AI summer school in Florence, Italy hosted by the European University Institute and University of Pittsburgh School of Law and sponsored by the University of Utrecht and the Cirsfid-Univeristy of Bolonga.  The intersection of AI and legal scholarship was the prominent theme at this year's interdisciplinary summer school, where early researchers gathered to grapple with the implications of algorithmic decision-making within judicial frameworks.

Against the backdrop of Renaissance architecture, doctoral candidates from Law, computer science and philosophy engaged in seminars and workshops covering natural language processing applications in legal analysis, the linguistic foundations of large language models and the technical underpinnings of deep learning and machine learning systems increasingly deployed across the legal sector.  The summer school's comprehensive curriculum explored significant dilemmas, ranging from accountability, bias, and the rule of law in a progressively automated society.

Meanwhile, seminars on the integration of legal technology investigated practical implementation challenges within firms, courts, and regulatory bodies.  Perhaps the most striking consensus that emerged was the need for interdisciplinary collaboration surrounding the complex challenges posed by AI's integration into regulatory frameworks, as well as facing the dilemmas AI poses to society overall.

Beyond the academic gains, the intellectual excitement and camaraderie of engaging with such passionate researchers in one of the world's most beautiful cities made this an unforgettable experience that has reinvigorated my commitment to this vital research field.”

Dylan Magill – Maths and Physics

I had the opportunity to present both my astronomical research and my work on assessing the environmental impacts of astronomical research at the European Astronomical Society’s Annual Meeting hosted in Cork (23^rd-27^th June).

As well as talks at the National Astronomy Meeting in Durham (8^th-10^th July) and the International Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena hosted in Belfast (11^th of June).  It’s been great to have the opportunity to talk about both my astronomical research and my interdisciplinary work.