Research
AI literacy, synthetic empathy, and what happens when machines start talking to each other.
My research asks how people interact with generative AI systems and what happens when they do not think critically about the output. I work across three areas: how AI simulates human qualities like empathy, how autonomous AI agents behave in social environments, and how to build genuine AI literacy that goes beyond training manuals.
I publish across disciplines. My work appears in education, science communication, geoscience, and AI journals. Full publication list on Google Scholar (100+ publications, 2,500+ citations, h-index 25).
Current projects
AI agent discourse analysis
2025 – present
What happens when 150,000 autonomous AI agents join a social network alongside 17,000 humans? We analysed 5,000 AI-generated comments from Butterflies, a platform where AI agents post, comment, and interact without human prompting. We developed a coding framework for evaluating AI-generated social discourse and examined how agents simulate community, empathy, and identity without human input.
The research finds extreme attention concentration (Gini coefficient 0.82–0.92) driven by the platform's architecture rather than participant behaviour. The core argument: it is the design of these systems, not the nature of their participants, that determines who gets heard.
Generative AI and university students
Leverhulme Trust, 2024 – 2026 · £142,761
Investigating how students in UK universities interact with ChatGPT and other generative AI systems. The project examines output evaluation behaviours, trust calibration, and how students decide when AI-generated content is reliable. This is empirical research with real users, not opinion surveys about attitudes.
The AI literacy deficit model
2025 – present
A policy intervention arguing that current AI literacy programmes globally reproduce the discredited information-deficit model from science communication. Thirty years of evidence from climate, vaccines, GMOs, and nuclear risk shows that public responses are shaped by trust, values, and identity, not by information alone. The same mistake is being made with AI. The work proposes participatory alternatives: two-way dialogue, creative methods, and genuine public voice in AI governance.
Synthetic empathy and AI attachment
Ongoing · Core topic in Slow AI curriculum
How do large language models produce outputs that mimic empathy? Why do users form inappropriate attachments to AI systems? And how do we build critical distance without dismissing the emotional reality of these interactions? This research examines the mechanics of simulated care in AI systems and informs the Slow AI curriculum modules on AI anthropomorphism and the psychology of human-AI interaction.
Selected past research
The Imitation Game: AI in Analogue and Digital Games
Arts and Humanities Research Council, 2018 – 2020 · £56,000
Investigated how artificial intelligence is represented and experienced in analogue and digital games. Explored the gap between how AI actually works and how game designers present it to players.
Climate Consortium
Natural Environment Research Council, 2017 – 2018 · £119,000
Large-scale science communication research on how publics understand and engage with climate science. Used creative and participatory methods to bridge the gap between climate researchers and affected communities.
Critical prompt design and output analysis
Slow AI Curriculum, 2024 – present
Structured curriculum module teaching evaluation of LLM outputs: identifying hallucination patterns, bias markers, and confidence miscalibration. Tested and refined across 12 monthly cohorts of paid subscribers.
Books
Generative AI in Higher Education (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Bridging Scholarship and Practice in Higher Education (Routledge, 2025)
Poetry and Pedagogy in Higher Education (Policy Press, 2024)
Effective Science Communication, 3rd edition (IOP Publishing, 2024). Adopted by 523 institutions across 66 countries. 250,000+ downloads.
A Sonnet to Science: Scientists and Their Poetry (Manchester University Press, 2019)
10 books total. Full list and all publications on Google Scholar.