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Dr Aisha Sobey
PhD in Architecture (Sociotechnical Smart Cities), MPhil in International Relations and Politics, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics
Research Associate on the Desirable Digitisation project at the Leverhulme CFI
Works of Art Curator at Jesus College
About me
Aisha’s research examines how AI systems distribute power, and who is excluded when they do. She works on generative AI bias, data justice, and the representation of disabled and non-normative bodies in AI models, drawing on architecture, sociology and human–computer interaction. Alongside her research she curates art at Jesus College and chairs work on inclusion and equity across the Cambridge Institute for Technology and Humanity.
Course
Awards
2025: Emerging Scholar Award from the Common Grounds Research Network on Technology, Knowledge and Society
2021: College Senior Scholarship for top-performing PhDs at Fitzwilliam College
2014 and 2016: PPE Prize for highest achieving student, QUB
Roles
University of Cambridge Data Champion (2023–2026)
Course Lead for the Pembroke Summer Program: Being Human in the Age of AI: Inclusion, Accessibility and Equity (2025 and 2026)
Community Track Chair: BritCHI Conference (British Computing Association Special Interest Human-Computer-Interaction Conference in HCI-AI) (2025 and 2026)
Wellbeing, Inclusion, Diversity and Equity Committee Chair for the Cambridge Institute for Technology and Humanity (2023–2026)
Publications
Sobey, A. and Ivanova, M. (2026). Critical epistemologies of AI healthcare apps(Opens in a new window). In S. S. Gouveia, ed., The Palgrave Handbook on the Ethics of AI. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 449–463.
Sobey, A. (2026). Generative AI’s talent for speaking, and the power of silence for the non-normative body(Opens in a new window). In F. T. Moura and C. Moruzzi, eds., Artificial Intelligence and Creative Industries. London: Routledge, pp. 61–72.
Sobey, A. (2025). The thinness of GenAI: Body size in relation to the construction of the normate through GenAI image models(Opens in a new window). AI and Ethics, 5, 4181–4196.
Sobey, A. and Carter, L. (2024). The harmful fetishisation of reductive personal tracking metrics in digital systems(Opens in a new window). In FAccT '24: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Rio de Janeiro: Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 899–908.
Sobey, A. (2024). Conceptualising fatness in HCI: A call for fat liberation(Opens in a new window). In CHI '24: Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Honolulu: Association for Computing Machinery, Article 506, 1–14.
Sobey, A. (2023). Obliged smart freedom: The Singaporean experience of advanced neoliberal-developmental governance(Opens in a new window). Urban Studies, 60 (16), 3336–3352.