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Staff Profile

Dr Clara Crivellaro

Reader in Digital Social Justice

Background

I am Reader (Associate Professor) in digital social justice at the School of Computing’s Open Lab, with expertise in Human-Computer Interaction, Digital Civics, Human-Centre Design, Participatory Design, and co-creation.

Prior to my current role, I was Senior Research Fellow in Digital Local Democracy and held a post-doc position at Open Lab working on the EPSRC-funded MyPlace project. I obtained my PhD in Computing at Newcastle University. I obtained my PhD in Human-Computer Interaction at Newcastle University. My PhD explored the design of participatory socio-technical processes to support social activism in the everyday politics of place.

Before joining academia, I worked as a Socially Engaged Art practitioner on various initiatives and projects in the creative and cultural sector in the UK and Europe. I have an MA of Arts in Curatorial practice and a BA (hons) in Arts & Design.


Research

My research explores how the careful design of new and emergent technologies and socio-technical processes can help support democratic practices and advance equity and social justice in digital societies. Key research areas include, designing for social activism and social justice through co-production of digital services and digital social innovations; data-driven innovations to help explore systemic issues and shape policy; embedding social justice and public values in the design of socio-technical systems. I am also interested in the design of novel tools and processes to support Responsible Research and Innovation in Computing and civic-driven research commissioning processes.


I am currently Co-Investigator on the EPSRC Centre for Digital Citizens – Next Stage Digital Economy Centre, where I contribute research on co-creation and algorithmic social justice.

I am Co-Investigator on the EPRSC Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transitions (HI-ACT), where I contribute novel civic engagements with energy futures for just transitions.


I was the Principal Investigator and Director of Not-Equal, the EPSRC Network+ on Social Justice through the Digital Economy (2018-2022), which fostered 18 cross-disciplinarity and cross-sectoral collaborations exploring Algorithmic Social Justice, equity in digital security and fairness in sharing economies. I was co-investigator on the co-investigator of the EPSRC Digital Economy Research Center(DERC, 2015-2022); and the H2020 Generative European Urban Commons, gE.CO (2019-2022), which developed socio-technical toolkits to support communing processes.


I am a co-founding member of OLAthens, a cooperative that supports solidarity movements’ social innovations in Greece.


My publications have received ACM best paper awards and honourable mentions for research likely to shape the future of computing. For full list of publications see my Google Scholar profile here.


Research Awards

  • EPSRC Hub on Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transition (HI-ACT). 2023-2028. (Co-I) (EP/X038823/1) (£10.7M)
  • Centre for Digital Citizens - Next Stage Digital Economy Centre. (Co-I) 10/2020-09/2025. EPSRC. EP/T022582/1. (£3,797,252)
  • Social Justice through the Digital Economy Network . (PI) 07/2018-06/2021. EPSRC. EP/R044929/1.  (£1,006,664).
  • gECO: Generative European Commons Living Labs. (Co-I) 02/2019 – 01/2022. H2020. (€995 810).
  • ESRC Nine DTP Studentship in Artificial Intelligence and Health. (Co-I with Prof Simon Forrest, Durham University). 01/2019-01/2022
  • EPSRC Digital Economy Research Centre (Co-I). 11/2018 – 10/2020. EPSRC. EP/M023001/. (£4,051,357).


PhD supervision

  • Peter Glick – Newcastle University, Designing digital tools to support the management of Personal Health Budgets
  • Bobbie Bailey – Newcastle University, Digital materialisation of Urban Imaginaries (2022)
  • Mohaan Biswas – Newcastle University, Trade Unions in the digital era (2022)
  • Ashleigh Alderson – Newcastle University, AI and Health information seeking online (2022)
  • Agata Jalosinska – Newcastle University, Data and Environment, (2022)
  • Sebastian Prost - Newcastle University, Infrastructuring food democracy (2021)
  • Jennifer Manuel - Newcastle University, Re-Designing Planning Policy Processes and Embedding Technology: The Case of Neighbourhood Planning (2021)
  • Stuart Nicholson - Newcastle University, Designing sustainable community interfaces (2021) 
  • Alexander Wilson – Newcastle University (2020), Technology-enabled planning participation (complete)
  • Daniel William Lambton-Howard – Newcastle University (2020), Designing Large-Scale Engagements on WhatsApp (complete)


Teaching

I have experience teaching a range of HCI module primarily at Master level and giving invited seminars and lectures about my research.  


  • CSC8601 — Systems and Societies, MSc HCI, School of Computing, Newcastle University, 2020-2021, (Module leader)
  • CSC8601 -- Introduction to Digital Civics, Mres in Digital Civics, School of Computing, Newcastle University, 2017-9, (Lecturer)
  • CSC8608 – IxD, Mres in Digital Civics, School of Computing, Newcastle University, 2017-9, (Lecturer)
  • CSC8607 – Research Methods, Mres in Digital Civics, School of Computing, Newcastle University, 2018-9, (Lecturer)
Publications