As one of the projects funded by the Robotics Sandpit, iHuman Research Fellow Stevienna de Saille led a cross-faculty initiative on ‘Improving Inclusivity in Robotics Design’, along with Eva Kipnis (Management School), Stephen Potter (CATCH), Tony Prescott (Sheffield Robotics), Matthew Lariviere (CIRCLE), Andy Bell (AMRC) and Lyuba Alboul (Sheffield Hallam). The initiative culminated in a day-long workshop which brought scholars from disability studies and design together with colleagues from robotics and related fields in a mini-sandpit to begin mapping out a project to be developed over the coming months.
Stevienna de Saille is also attending the European Sociological Association conference from 20-24 August, where she will give a paper on ‘CRISPR in Context: towards a socially responsible debate on embryo editing’, co-authored with Michael Morrison of HeLEX, University of Oxford. The paper, which uses Mary Douglas’ idea of “matter out of place” to situate CRISPR within the histories of biotechnology and IVF in order to better understand how this context shapes discussion by both scientists and publics, will shortly be published by Palgrave Communications.
