My Expertise
Social impacts of emerging technologies, e.g. AI; digital futures; digital culture; belonging; wellbeing; fiction
Fields of Research (FoR)
Sociology, Sociology and social studies of science and technologyBiography
Dr Ash Watson is a sociologist and Senior Research Fellow at UNSW Sydney. Her research focuses on the relationships between technology and culture, and examines the impacts of digital innovation and change on belonging, wellbeing and inclusion. Her previous research examined people's understandings of personal data including health information and the everyday impacts of digital technologies during COVID-19. She is a fellow of the ARC Centre...view more
Dr Ash Watson is a sociologist and Senior Research Fellow at UNSW Sydney. Her research focuses on the relationships between technology and culture, and examines the impacts of digital innovation and change on belonging, wellbeing and inclusion. Her previous research examined people's understandings of personal data including health information and the everyday impacts of digital technologies during COVID-19. She is a fellow of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society and a member of the UNSW AI Institute.
Ash has an international profile for her innovative methodological scholarship which shows the value of creative and digital/computational methods for qualitative sociology. She is an invited Editorial Board Member of Qualitative Research and Fiction Editor of The Sociological Review. She leads the creative project So Fi Zine, an open-access publication for sociological experiments in the form of flash fiction, poetry and visual art which she first launched in 2017. Her debut novel Into the Sea was published by Brill in 2020. She makes zines at Frances St Press.
My Grants
Long P, Watson A, Alizadeh A, Homan S and Bartindale T (2024-2026) Mapping Australian Homemade, Amateur & Do-it-Yourself Cultural Economies. Australian Research Council Discovery Project [DP240102301]. $561,545.00.
My Qualifications
Doctor of Philosophy
My Awards
Endeavour Research Fellowship, 2017
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
Sociology, digital culture, science and technology studies, creative writing
Currently supervising
Cecily Klim. PhD candidate, Centre for Social Research in Health. "Coming to and from the senses: an embodied approach to experiences of contraception."