Research projects

ART/DATA/HEALTH: Data as creative material for health and wellbeing project

The academic research project ART/ DATA/HEALTH (2019-2021, funded by the UKRI-AHRC Innovation Leadership Fellowship, PI Dr Aristea Fotopoulou) creates an innovative and interdisciplinary process that offers disadvantaged groups and the public new tools, at the intersections of data science with art practice, to approach two key issues in healthy aging and prevention: digital skills and health literacy.

Critical Data Literacy project

But what kinds of skills are needed in order to make sense of big data? What do community organisations need to know if they want to communicate in an engaging way? How can data become relevant and accessible for the social good? And how can these skills help them address the critical and ethical questions that […]

SUSNET

EPSRC CCN+ funded, Sustaining Networked Knowledge: Expertise, Feminist Media Production, Art and Activism Project (SusNet), University of Sussex. co-ordinated by Kate O’Riordan and Aristea Fotopoulou   

Tracking biodata project

Tracking biodata: sharing and ownership was a pilot research funded by the RCUK Digital Economy Nemode network. The project examined social and policy implications of emerging models of sharing and ownership, in relation to the use of personal data & biodata. It focused on a) user practices and b) online service provision models  of personal data analytics and […]

Talk at Data Power Conference, 2019

A video recording of the talk “Understanding data power from a feminist perspective”, which I gave at the 3rd International DATA POWER Conference global in/securities, can be accessed here. (hosted by the ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen in cooperation with the Universities of Carleton, Canada, and Sheffield, UK, 12-13 September 2019) You […]

Art responses to COVID19 – The Polyphony

A review of early artistic responses to Covid-19, which has been published in the The Polyphony: conversations across the medical humanities. The article offers insights into how emerging artwork tackles key issues arising from the crisis. Written by the researchers of the ART/DATA/HEALTH project.

FYLDE Coast Consortium

The FYLDE Coast Consortium is an AHRC Health Inequalities Phase 2 Award as part of UKRI’s Mobilising Community Assets to Tackle Health Inequalities research programme, led by Dr Barbara Mezes, University of Liverpool. Project outline Coastal communities continue to have more, and greater health challenges compared to their inland neighbours. This project will use creative methods and co-production […]

Research interests & expertise

  • Arts and health/wellbeing
  • Feminist data studies
  • Gender, sexuality, class and race in digital networks and information societies
  • Health datafication
  • Digital societies and inequality
  • Critical theory
  • Creative and innovative research methods
  • Pedagogies of data for advocacy and citizen empowerment
  • Embodiment and emerging technologies

Fotopoulou was awarded the 2017 University of Brighton Research & Enterprise Excellence Award for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) for her research within 5 years of PhD graduation and 2 years of first academic post, and between 2018-19 she served as the ECR Ambassador of the University of Brighton. She is member of the network ‘New Environments – New Knowledge l UKRI eNurture Network‘, promoting improved mental health outcomes for young people in a digital world. Between 2016 and 2018 she served as Chair of the Digital Culture & Communication Section of the European Communications Research and Education Association (ECREA).

Career

2015-Present:  University of Brighton (Lecturer, Senior Lecturer 2016, Principal Lecturer 2018, Reader 2021)

2014-15: University of Lancaster (Lecturer, Sociology)

2014:  Visiting Scholar at University of California, Santa Cruz (Research Center Science and Justice)

2012-13: Research Assistant at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Project: Storycircle, an EPSRC-funded action research project that focused on the social and digital conditions for narrative exchange and knowledge production (PI Nick Couldry, Framework for Innovation and Research in MediaCityUK).(http://storycircleuk.com/)

2012-2014: Research Fellow in the EU-funded project EPINET, a technological assessment of emerging technologies (smart grids, wearable sensors and in-vitro meat) (Integrated Assessment of Societal Impacts of Emerging Science and Technology from within Epistemic Networks, FP7-SCIENCE-IN-SOCIETY-2012- European Commission. http://www.epinet.no/) (University of Sussex, Media).