Large and Small Scales

October 25, 2022

On November 14, we’ll host the fifth 2022 seminar on interdisciplinarity, asking questions about scale: How can researchers navigate issues and topics of critical global importance through both large and small scale data driven approaches? This session is part of the Responsible Data Science Seminar Series.

How might we harness the knowledges and experiences of researchers to tackle issues on the micro and macro level?

This series brings together diverse voices from disparate disciplines like data science and anthropology to talk about their definitions of interdisciplinarity, as well as struggles and commitment to this practice. This series also brings seasoned scholars together with Early Career Researchers to share practices across these levels.

Each seminar is unique, but builds from the core premise that today’s “big issues” demand more attention to interdisciplinarity and that everyone benefits when research ecosystems integrate multiple perspectives, even when this is challenging and time consuming.

DERC developed and is co-sponsoring this series on Interdisciplinary Data Science with University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.

Seminar 5
November 14, 2022
9-10 a.m. Melbourne time | 12-1 p.m. Toronto time | 5-6 p.m. UK time

Online via Zoom.

Register through Eventbrite

This seminar features the following participants:


Shion Guha Assistant Professor, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto 

Shion’s current research interests cut across human-computer interaction, data science, and public policy. Contributing to developing the field of Human-Centred Data Science, he is interested in understanding how algorithmic decision making processes are designed, implemented, and evaluated in public services. Shion is also an author on Human-Centered Data Science: An Introduction (2022), an Amazon Best Selling textbook.


Anissa Tanweer, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, eScience Institute, University of Washington

Anissa conducts ethnographic research on the practice and culture of data science and applies a sociotechnical lens to the design and implementation of data science training programs. She runs the University of Washington’s Data Science for Social Good program and has published in journals such as Big Data & Society, Harvard Data Science Review, and Information, Communication & Society. Most recently she published Tradeoffs all the way down (2022)


Annette Markham, Ph.D.
Co-Director of DERC and Professor of Media & Communication, RMIT University

Annette is a methodologist and ethics expert and researcher of digital culture. She has conducted applied research across corporate, governmental, and academic sectors. Currently, Markham co-directs DERC, the Digital Ethnography Research Centre, is founder and co-director of The International Skagen Institute for Transgressive Methods, and the co-director of STEEM, the Center for the Study of Technological, Emerging, and Ethical Methods in Denmark. More at annettemarkham.com


Gina Neff, Ph.D.
Executive Director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology & Democracy at the University of Cambridge and Professor of Technology & Society at the University of Oxford

Gina’s research focuses on the effects of the rapid expansion of our digital information environment on workers and workplaces and in our everyday lives. She advises international organisations including UNESCO, the OECD and the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society. She chairs the International Scientific Committee of the UK’s Trusted Autonomous Systems programme and is a member of the Strategic Advisory Network for the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. Her academic research has won both engineering and social sciences awards. More here