Gwendolin Barnard

Gwendolin Barnard is a PhD researcher at the department of Sociology at University of Graz, Austria working on the intersection of AI policy and regulation of work.

Their dissertation critically assesses how AI policy and data governance position workers as participants in mitigating, containing, and anticipating harms and risks occurring through the deployment and use of data-driven systems at work. In doing so, it asks how workers are anticipated to play a role in the deployment and design (ex-ante) as well as in the scrutiny (ex post) of data-driven systems with the ultimate aim of ensuring algorithmic accountability. Empirically, this project focuses on the EU policy making process in the establishment, deployment and enforcement of the EU AI Act. The project is supervised by Prof. Juliane Jarke and co-supervised by Dr. Seeta Peña Gangadharan.

They hold an MSc in Media and Communications (Data & Society) from the London School of Economics, where they researched the role of data in the negotiation of the management relationship between white-collar workers and their managers.

Before starting their PhD studies, they worked at the London-based policy institute ‘Institute for the Future of Work’ where they researched topics including algorithmic impact assessments and affective algorithmic management.

They are also part of the research team at the US-based organisation ‘Our Data Bodies – Justice and Human rights’ where they are currently working on a project identifying the policy vacuums that legitimated practices of managerial-led surveillance at U.S. Amazon Warehouses with the aim identifying routes forward.