Dr Monika Fratczak

I joined University of Sheffield as a PhD student in 2018. I am currently working with Dr Jo Bates and Dr Itzelle Medina-Perea as a postdoctoral researcher at Patterns in Practice, an AHRC funded project that is exploring how practitioners’ beliefs, values and feelings interact to shape how they engage with and in data mining and machine learning.

In 2022 I held a research post working with Professor Helen Kennedy on the Nuffield Foundation funded project entitled ‘Living With Data: understanding people’s knowledge, experiences and perceptions of data practices’ which looks at everyday, public sector data practices related to healthcare, accessing public services, and media use and investigates how we 'live' with data, and a research post working with Dr Ozge Ozduzen on the British Academy funded project entitled ‘Mapping and visualising intersections of social inequalities, community mistrust, and vaccine hesitancy in online and physical spaces in the UK and US’ which investigates how do social inequalities play out within the global vaccine uptake in the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2021 I worked with Professor Chris Anderson, Professor Helen Kennedy, and Professor Georgia Aiello on the AHRC funded project ‘Generic Visuals in the News: The Role of Stock Photos and Simple Data Visualizations in Assembling Publics’ which investigates the role that generic visuals play in bringing groups of people together around shared interests and concerns, activating citizens to care (or not) about particular issues, making possible (or not) various forms of engagement, including democratic decision-making, and in spreading or inhibiting the spread of disinformation.