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Staff Profile

Dr Tina Sikka

Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice

Background

Dr. Tina Sikka is a Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice in the School of Arts and Culture at Newcastle University, UK. Dr. Sikka’s most recent book, Health Apps, Genetic Diets, and Superfoods: When Biopolitics Meets Neoliberalism (2023), uses autoethnography, science and technology studies, and new materialism to examine what constitutes ‘good health’ and explore possibilities for enacting health justice. Her book, Sex, Consent, and Justice: A New Feminist Framework (2021) offers a novel approach to sexual ethics and transformative forms of justice using case studies from #MeToo, while her first book, Climate Technology, Gender, and Justice: The Standpoint of the Vulnerable (2019), draws on feminist science studies to explore the science underpinning solar climate engineering.


Dr. Sikka is also a Researcher Education and Development Fellow with the RED team in School X, contributing to postgraduate training for students across the HaSS Faculty. She specialise in a variety of qualitative methods.  


Dr. Sikka’s work on EDI, and current role as Director of EDI in the School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University, has led to invitations to lead workshops and act as a consultant on race, gender, and the workplace, cancel culture, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in the public and private sectors. 



Roles and responsibilities at Newcastle University:


  • Director of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion: School of Arts and Cultures (2022-2025)
  • Central author of Media, Culture, Heritage anti-racism statement
  • Lead on Media, Culture, and Heritage’s Pedagogical, Pastoral, and Inclusivity Project
  • Research Ethics Committee Member
  • Board Member: University Gender Research Group
  • Health and Safety Committee Member
  • Currently serving as Head of Postgraduate Research (2018-2022)
  • Head of Postgraduate Scholarships (2018-2022)



Education:


School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC

SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-2012)

Supervisor: Dr. Andrew Feenberg (Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology)


Faculty of Communication and Culture, York University, Toronto, Ontario

PhD. Faculty of Arts, in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture (2004-2008)

Dissertation title: ‘Recuperating Politics from Derrida: A Pragmatist Critique.’

Advisor: Dr. Myles Ruggles


Department of Mass Communication, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario

MA, Journalism and Mass Communication (2003-2004)

Thesis title: ‘The Relationship between Technology and the Future in Modern and Postmodern Thought.’

Advisor: Dr. Sheryl Hamilton


School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC

Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Communications (2002-2003)


School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC

BA in Communications (1997-2002)



Other platforms and resources:


Academia 

Google Scholar 

Orcid

Personal website

Linkedin

Twitter






Research

Dr. Sikka has published articles in such noted journals as The Nordic Journal in Feminist and Gender Research; The Journal of the Swiss Anthropological Association; Capitalism, Nature, Socialism; Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation, and Culture; and Food, Culture, Society. She has also contributed interviews, articles and expertise to public-facing media outlets including Huffpost, Jacobin, Public Seminar, and The Conversation. Tina is an avid podcaster, appearing on both academic and popular podcasts, and has been invited to speak at international conferences, symposia, and corporate panels. 


Dr Sikka’s current research includes the critical and intersectional study of science, applied to climate change, bodies, and health, as well as research on consent, sexuality, and restorative justice. She has published books, several dozens of peer-reviewed articles, media articles and blogs, book reviews, participated in over a dozen of podcasts, spoken at invited lectures and participated in conferences/symposiums/keynotes.



Professional Associations include:




Funding


Current and recently completed funded projects include:


  1. Violence Abuse and Mental Health Network Grant (£15000). ‘Sexual Violence and Lived Experience: New Futures.’
  2. Newcastle University Faculty Research Training Programme Fellowship (FTRP) 2022-2024.
  3. Newcastle University Global Fund (£593.59). ‘Disruption and Belonging: HASS PGR Experience.’ (2022)
  4. Newcastle University QRSPF Research to Policy Fund (£8401). ‘A qualitative, experiential, and policy-driven study of Covid-19 through the lens of gender, race, and fatness’ (2022)
  5. Co-I, NERC (£98, 326). ‘Making Environmental Science Equal, Diverse, and Inclusive.’ (2021-2022).
  6. Newcastle University QR SPF Research to Policy Fund (£3,594.99). ‘Covid-19 and Race: News Coverage of Structural Racism and the Role of John Henryism and Racial Weathering in BAME Covid-19 Deaths’ (2021)
  7. Newcastle University Policy Fellowship 2019-2020
  8. Faculty Bid Preparation (£800): ‘Anti-Carceral Feminism and Consent in the Age of #MeToo’ (2020)
  9. Faculty Research Fund (£1300): ‘Anti-Carceral Feminism and Consent in the Age of #MeToo’ (2019).
  10. Winner of the International Award for Excellence in the area of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses for my article Geoengineering in a World Risk Society. Awarded by Common Ground Publishing (2012).




Dr Sikka was the Country Coordinator for Canada in 2015 for the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). The GMMP works to pursue gender equality in news media. In March 2015, the project completed a global day of monitoring in which a multiplicity of news media in over 100 countries was monitored in order to present a snapshot of how women are represented in mainstream news both quantitatively and qualitatively. Dr Sikka oversaw a team of students monitoring the media, and prepared and wrote the country report for Canada.






Teaching

Lecturer in Media, Culture, Heritage, January (2017-present)

Reader in Technoscience and Intersectional Justice 


HSS8007: Qualitative Methods (PGR Training)

MCH8081 : Representations: Feminism, Race and Intersectionality

MCH8081: Feminist Media Studies: Gender and Intersectionality (elapsed)

MCH2065: Race and Identity

MCH2069: Research Methodologies (UG & PG)

MCH2075: Representations: Identity, Culture and Society 

MCH2013: Food and Gender

MCH8177: Politics, Power and Communication





Previous Teaching experience includes:



Simon Fraser University, Fraser International College, University of the Fraser Valley (2002-2017)


Teaching Assistant:

Introduction to Communication (2002)

Readings in Marshall McLuhan (2003)

Qualitative Methodologies (2003)

Social Production of Popular Music (2009)

Media and Audiences (2009)

Introduction to Communication (2007, 2008)

Social Design (2007, 2008)

Lecturer:

International Communication (2009)

Introduction to Communication (2009)

Introduction to Mass Communication (2010)

Media and Audiences (2010)

Political Economy (2010)

Social Dimensions of Advertising (2010)

Introduction to Mass Communication (2010)

Technology and Gender (2013-2015)




York University (2004-2007)


Course Director:

Communication Theory; 3rd year (2006-2007)

Teaching Assistant:

Introduction to Communication (2006)

Technology and Culture/New Media (2004-2007)

Research Assistant:

- Supervisor: Dr. Myles Ruggles. 

Intellectual property rights, philosophy of bioinformatics, genetic modification of foodcrops (corn) in Mexico (2004-2007).

- Supervisor: Dr. Rosemary Coombe 

Restructured Dr. Coombe’s doctoral course in cultural studies and her graduate course on transnationalism (2006-2007) 




Carleton University (2003-2004)


Teaching Assistant 

Introduction to Mass Communication 

Publications