AsSIST-UK awards an annual prize for a PhD thesis that demonstrates outstanding quality in the STS/Innovation Studies field in the previous year. The Prize is dedicated to the memory of AsSIST-UK co-founder, Prof. Andrew Webster and in recognition of his unwavering commitment to supporting early career researchers.
We are delighted to announce that the 2024 Andrew Webster PhD Prize is awarded to:
Dr Benedetta Catanzariti (University of Edinburgh) for her thesis: Seeing Affect: Knowledge Infrastructures in Facial Expression Recognition Systems
Benedetta’s thesis examines affective computing applications and their promise to ‘decode human affective experience’ – in essence, to read the face and its emotions, from frustration to boredom and depression – with scientific objectivity.
The nomination noted how she brings historical context to these practices by grounding them in older psychological theories (including overtly racist ones) and longstanding Western claims that there are universal emotions, and acknowledges an important legacy of critiques of such projects. Benedetta’s thesis, grounded in feminist studies of science and technology, offers empirical data on the current behind-the-scenes work that goes into the classification practices categorising affective behaviours and validating classification choices.
The thesis shows – perhaps surprisingly – that practitioners are well aware of the existing critiques of underlying Facial Expression Recognition theory, but profess agnosticism regarding this; their goal is to operationalise the underlying theory – even if it is flawed – to develop commercial applications in the workplace or healthcare. She argues that while the field claims this agnosticism in the face of critiques, this strategy obscures accountability towards these interpretive and normative decisions, sidestepping the social implications and underpinning origins of these systems. She also shows with impressive detail those instances in the FER process when human interpretation mediates and makes sense of affective data and the normative choices that go into labelling human affect – for instance, the power differentials seen between the different levels of expertise accorded to ‘expert coders’ on the one hand, and ‘lay annotators’ on the other; and how Facial Expression Recognition in the healthcare context reflects normative visions of health, the body and gender.
We also wish to strongly commend the following graduates for their impressive and novel work:
Dr Vassilis Galanow (University of Edinburgh): Expectations and Expertise in Artificial Intelligence
Commendation: “An outstanding piece of research that offers novel insights into the relationships between AI technologists and those involved in AI governance, and which brings together the sociology of expectation and studies of experience and expertise in new ways”
Dr Louise Elstow (University of Lancaster): Getting the Measure of It: Radiation Knowledge Construction in Japan since 2011
Commendation: “A highly original and in-depth ethnography of the practices through which radiation knowledge is constructed in Japan in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown, demonstrating the value of STS concepts and methods to the sociology of disaster and showiung how concepts and methods from STS can translate into the practical and policy work of emergency management professionals”
Congratulations to Benedetta and to Vassilis and Louise.
