Aisha Sobey

Aisha is a postdoctoral researcher specialising in understanding the construction of power systems and how these are enacted, compounded, and challenged through digital technologies.

Academic interests

Aisha Sobey’s academic interests include: 

• Systemic power and digital technologies
• Representation and diversity in digital spaces
• The political economy of smart places
• Designing for wellbeing
• AI ethics
• Fat liberation.

Degrees obtained

• BA, Queens University Belfast.
• MPhil, Cantab.
• PhD, Cantab.

Awards and prizes

• 2018: Lee Kuan Yew PhD Scholarship, Fitzwilliam College.
• 2019: Digital X Scholarship with the Norman Foster Foundation.
• 2020 and 2021: College Senior Scholarship for top performing PhD research students at Fitzwilliam College.

Biography

Aisha Sobey is an interdisciplinary scholar focussing on the power dynamics of digital technologies. Her PhD thesis considered the embedded control of the Singaporean Smart Nation and asked how motivations of Machine Learning ML and AI in city space shape and question what is privileged and marginalised by the systems they form.

In a second, related strand of research, she considers design justice for fat liberation by exploring the relationship between AI and anti-fat bias. This project is underpinned by queer, feminist scholarship.

Aisha is also passionate about widening participation and inclusion in higher education in Cambridge. She is the chair of the LCFI Wellbeing, Inclusion, Diversity and Equality group and acts as a mentor for the SAH Summer school.

Other interests

Fantasy fiction, pottery, and cinema.