School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

My research interests have roughly fallen into three main categories in my career till now:

1. Organ Transplantation and Genetic Donation (pre 2013): In the Sociology Department at the University of Edinburgh by PhD was based on interviews with organ donation families in Scotland who had agreed or refused to donate the organs of their next of kin ('Organ donation and Transplantation: The Paradox of Gifting and Dis/Embodiment'). From there I was employed as a research fellow evaluating the introduction of NHS 24 followed by employment in the ESRC Innogen Centre based in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, on the ELSI team focussing on biobanks and genetic donation. 

   2. Animal, Mechanical and Me: The Search for Replaceable Hearts (2013-2018): Next, funded by a Wellcome Trust University Award this allowed me the luxury of dedicated time to pursue my own research interests and the security of an open contract. In AM&ME I began to explore ideas from my PhD about how subjectivity alterations will partly be determined by the type and kind of material that is used to repair, replace or regenerate the body.  Using the term ‘everyday cyborgs’ my research challenges public stereotypes of monsters and academic understandings of what ‘cyborgs’ are.  Further I show that most people, if made to choose between (hypothetical) implantable technologies, would least prefer a transplanted pig organ and most preferred a 3-D bioprinted replacement organs and I reflect on the boundaries of our identity in the book 'Embodiment and Everyday Cyborgs: Technologies that Alter Subjectivity' (MUP open access). With an additional Wellcome Public Engagement Award for 'Everyday Cyborgs: Stories from the Inside/Out', I was incredibly fortunate to be able to work with a range of incredible people including young adults, creative professionals, ICD patients etc and co-producing four films: 

   (i) a gothic film about non-human animal hybridity 'Broken Wings' over an 18-month period with young adults supported by creative professionals, film-makers, sound producers and animators; 

   (ii) an emotional short film co-produced with a research participant and filmmaker, ‘Maggie’s ICD story’; 

   (iii) 'Electrifying Cyborg Heart' which was an animation reflecting on the nature of the relationship between human bodies, identity and technology; and 

   (iv) 'Everyday Cyborgs' - an animation depicting the findings of qualitative research with ICD patients all joined with ‘talking head’ sections for a 45-minute documentary, 

   All of these have been made into a documentary available here: Everyday Cyborgs and Humanimals 

   3. Disability, Illness and Pain (2024 - present): Funded by a Wellcome Trust Culture Catalyst Fund for Innovation Frameworks (June 2025) we will carry out a research project called 'Who cares in the university? Reimagining research cultures through research with and by disabled and chronically ill academics.' Colleagues and I will set out to challenge university ableist and disablitist practices which, we assume, will be made visible in university policies, procedures and processes. Further, we will embed 'care' in our research drawing on theoretical frameworks from feminist ('ethics of care research manifesto') and disability justice literature (our team will be based on a 'web of care'). We will work within a 'slow scholarship' ideology where we will resist the need for fast knowledge production. As we advocate for a 'universal design' approach our finding can be used to benefit all academics as UD is about ‘designing all products and the built environment to be aesthetic and usable to the greatest extent possible by everyone, regardless of age, ability, or status in life’.

Edinburgh Research Explorer profile

PhD Supervision

I enjoy and benefit from being on the PhD teams of students interested in a variety of areas relating to bodies, identity and medical science and technology: 

Current PhD students:

1. Sasha Lee Smit (2025) Epistemic Injustice in AI/MML within health care data (with Emily Postan)
2. Lara Bochman (2023) Embodying the trans-ing body: temporality and materiality in non-linear gender
   transitions (with Niamh Moore)
3. Janet Philip (2020): Behind Closed Doors: Boundary work in Anatomy Schools(with Steve Sturdy and colleagues in the Anatomy School).
4. Laura Donald (2019): Narrating chronic heart disease in contemporary British and American writing, 1980-present (with Gavin Miller in Literature and the Medical Humanities. The University of Glasgow). 

Completed PhD Students:

1. Nathalie Dupin (2023): Maximising PhD outputs for 'UK Plc' through interdisciplinary practices.
2. Vassilis Galanos (2022): Expectations and Expertise in Artificial Intelligence: Specialist views and historical perspectives on conceptualisation, promise, funding and policy.
3. Fiona Coyle (2022): Mitigating Modification: Understanding the UK Human Germline Genome-Editing Debate
4. Annie Sorbie (2022): Operationalising ‘publicness’ in data-intensive health research regulation: An examination of the public interest as a regulatory device (with colleagues in Law)
5. Aoife McKenna (2019) Women’s Experiences of Sterilisation in Brazil: Negotiating Reproductive Discourse, Institutional and Intimate Relationships, and Contraceptive Practices.
6. Natalia Niño Machado (2018) Growing right: unpacking the WHO Child Growth Standards Development and their implementation in Colombia.
7. Leah Gilman (2017) Qualifying Kinship: How do UK Gamete Donors Negotiate Identity-Release Donation?
8. Sara Bea (2017): No Heroics, please: Mapping Deceased Donation Practices in a Catalan Hospital.
9. Tarmphong Chobisara (2017): The Authentic Research Relationship in Biobanks.
10. Malissa Shaw (2016): Embodied Agency and Agentic Bodies: Negotiating Medicalisation in Colombian Assisted Reproduction.
11. Alison Wheatley (2016): Good Soldiers, Good Guys, and Good Parents: The Meanings of Donation and Donated Tissue in the Context of the Danish Donor Sperm Industry.
12. Tirion Seymour (2016): The Third Sector and the Shaping of Scottish Huntingdon’s disease services: organisations, identity, and boundary work.