Dr Michael Katell

Michael Katell

Position

Ethics Fellow

Bio

Dr Mike Katell is an Ethics Fellow in the Turing’s Public Policy Programme and a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI) at Queen Mary University of London. He is a technology policy scholar and philosopher of technology whose research focuses on the social justice and human rights implications of data and digital infrastructures. Dr Katell is also a co-director of the Critical Platform Studies Group (CritPlat), an independent research collective whose work focuses on surfacing structures of power and domination reflected in technology-related research practices and in the production and allocation of information goods.

Public engagement

  • “An equity view of public reason: Privacy and surveillance policy as social justice.” In A. Duff, Research Handbook on Information Policy (pp. 174–188). Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • “An Action-Oriented AI Policy Toolkit for Technology Audits by Community Advocates and Activists.” Conference paper presentation, Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT). 
  • “Seattle's surveillance contractor has history of illegal sales, bribery, worrying privacy advocates.” Interview, Seattle Times.
  • “Policy versus Practice: Conceptions of Artificial Intelligence.” Conference paper presentation at the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES).
  • “Toward Situated Interventions for Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency: Lessons from the field.” Conference paper presentation, Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT*).
  • “Data Protection and Privacy.” Invited talk, Seattle Community Technology Advisory Board (CTAB).
  • “Checking Out: Amazon, Microsoft, and the Future of Automated Grocery.” Interview, Seattle Met Magazine.
  • “Patron or Perish? Interrogating the Role of Industry Funding in Academic Research.” Conference paper presentation, Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).
  • “Corporate Expertise and Civic Good: A Critical Examination of Seattle’s Innovation Advisory Council.” Conference paper presentation, Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).
  • “Surveillance law, harm, and solutions.” Invited seminar, School of Law, Seattle University.
  • “Understanding vs. accounting for automated systems: The case of the Seattle Surveillance Ordinance.” Conference paper presentation, TiLTing Perspectives.
  • “Algorithmic reputation and information equity.” Conference paper presentation, Association for Information Science and Technology Annual Meeting (ASIS&T).
  • "Algorithmic privacy as reputation." Conference paper presentation, Amsterdam Privacy Conference.
  • "The normative force of quantified reputation." Conference paper presentation, Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable.
  • "Interrogating automated hiring and quantitative reputation," Invited workshop paper, Data & Society ‘Work, Labor, and Automation Workshop’.
  • "Digital reputation the production of identity.” Invited talk, PechaKucha Seattle.
  • "Reputational justice: Transparency and equity in the information society," Invited talk, Data Privacy Lab, Harvard University.

Research interests

  • Information and data ethics (e.g., what are the ethical obligations of the production and use of information and data?)
  • Political philosophy (e.g., what are the necessary features and preconditions of just and equitable society?)
  • Participatory methods (e.g., how can we include situated knowledge and civic epistemologies in data science research and practice?)
  • Race and social justice (e.g., how can we dismantle structures of domination and oppression in society for the good of all?)
  • Science and technology studies (e.g., how do societies express and reproduce their politics through technology development and implementation?)