Dr. Paula Helm

I am an Asisstant Professor in the field of Critical Data Studies and AI Ethics. My work is situated at the intersection of STS, Media Studies and Ethics. Apart from teaching and research, I am also serving as a member of the UvA Ethics Commission. The larger goal and mission of my work is to move AI-Ethics from the PR- to the Engineering- and Development-Level. To reach this goal, I am collaborating closely with partners from Computer Science, applying and combining co-creation approaches with empirical ethics, future methodologies, experimental designs and feminist technoscience. I hold a doctorate in philosophy (summa cum laude).
Before starting my current position, I was a research associate at the MCTS at the Technical University Munich and the International Center for Ethics in Science at Tübingen University, where I was co-leading work-packages in several national and EU-projects concerned with the creation and ethical advancement of AI-Systems in various domains. Before that, I completed my PhD while I was working as a research associate at the University of Frankfurt in an interdisciplinary research project dealing with the “Structural Transformations of Privacy”. I was also a visiting scholar at the Center for Surveillance Studies at Queen’s University (invited by David Lyon) and at New York University, where I worked with the Privacy Research Group (invited by Helen Nissenbaum) and the Institute for Public Knowledge during the exciting period of the emergence of Critical Algorithm and Data Studies.

In 2022 I was honored to be awarded the recognition of being on the list of 100 Most Brilliant Women in AI-Ethics. I am a working mother of two.