PhD Researcher in Data Bodies

Research at the Faculty of Humanities is carried out by six research schools under the aegis of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research . The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis  (ASCA)is one of six research schools and as a vacant PhD position on Data Bodies, which is part of AI for Health Decision-Making, a new research priority area (RPA) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA).  The project is developed in collaboration between the Faculties of the Humanities and Medicine, and is led by Prof. Dr. Tobias Blanke (Humanities & AI), Prof. Dr. Thomas Poell (Data, Culture & Institutions), Prof. Dr. Ivana Išgum (AI and Medical Imaging) and Prof Dr Alexander Vlaar (AMC).

ASCA is home to more than 110 scholars and 120 PhD candidates and is a world-leading international research school in Cultural Analysis. ASCA members share a commitment to working in an interdisciplinary framework and to maintaining a close connection with contemporary cultural and political debates.

What are you going to do

From a critical humanities perspective, the suggested project on Data Bodies maps how hospital communities as a whole (patients and doctors) and their relations are mediated through data and algorithmic decisions. More specifically, it examines how data and algorithmic decisions are employed in two proof-of-concept applications of AI-driven health decision-making. The project is situated within the Research Priority Area on Health AI of the UvA, which is led by the Health Faculty. The PhD will be part of this initiative and will work with other researchers from Health, Law and Computer Science. Adopting a ‘data lens’, this PhD project aims to understand the moment of information as it finds its way across the AI-driven decision-making process. It offers insights into how human and machine agents get in contact with each other, how value is added through reasoning, what happens when, e.g. issues/errors are discovered and how they are corrected.

Data Bodies will be operationalized through a mixed method, participatory research methodology to explore the representation and experience of bodies through data and reasoning with data in AI. We will map how Data Bodies are constructed within the process of AI modelling in healthcare and how differences in body representations might generate ethical dilemmas. Do data forms and flows respect patients’ and public values? How is the hospital community affected by differences in data bodies? And how are these data processes embedded in the larger organization of the hospital and related to legacy systems of patient monitoring? The research is concerned with the ways in which patients' digital information is collected, stored, and shared in health processes. A detailed critical study of different data forms and flows will show how the involved data systems are ethically and historically constituted and materialize uncertainty of measurements and predictions that influences the behaviour of medical professionals and patients alike.

Tasks and responsibilities:

• submission of a PhD thesis within the period of appointment;
• conducting empirical research, writing publications;
• participating in conferences and seminars.
• participation in the ASCA and Faculty of Humanities PhD training programmes;
• teaching courses at BA-level or other types of activities in the 2nd and 3rd year of the appointment (0,2 FTE per year).