The Digital Condition: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Humans, Societies and Machines

A Digital, Data Science & AI Spotlight event

Date: 29 April 2026

Location: Helen Martin Studio (12pm - 4pm) and FAB 1.16 (4.15pm - 6pm)

About the Event

Join researchers from across the University for an energetic half‑day exploration of what it means to research, create, and collaborate in our increasingly digital world. Through talks, discussions, networking and interactive sessions, the event brings together diverse digital, creative and interdisciplinary research, including emerging, innovative methods and cutting‑edge critical perspectives.

We’ll begin at midday in the Helen Martin Studio at Warwick Arts Centre with a relaxed networking lunch, followed by an opening talk from Professor Meg Davis, Tara Imalingat and Javier Garcier Martinez from Link opens in a new window12:30. The team will talk about the Digital Health and Rights Project (DHRP) consortiumLink opens in a new window ,Link opens in a new window which was launched in 2019 in response to the rapid growth of new partnerships by global and national health agencies with big tech companies, to gather empirical evidence of the effects of the digital transformation on young adults living with HIV and young key populations in low- and middle-income countries (especially Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam), and to use this evidence to inform national and global health governance. The consortium investigates how digital technologies, health, and human rights intersect in a context of global and local inequalities, and advocates collectively for rights of young adults and civil society in low- and middle-income countries. Speakers:

Prof. Sara (Meg) Davis, Principal investigator
Tara Imalingat, Advocacy and impact coordinator
Javier Garcia Martinez, Ph.D. candidate, Research assistant

Throughout the afternoon (14:15 - 16:45) you'll hear a series of fast‑paced impulse talks showcasing digital‑related projects from a range of departments. These sessions are designed to spark new conversations, share best practice, and highlight novel approaches to studying humans, societies, and machines. Speakers include: Scott Brooks (KTP Associate and Research Engineer, Warwick Medical School); Federica Coluzzi (Associate Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies); Siddharth De Souza (Assistant Professor, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies); Kristian Romano (Research Fellow, Statistics); and Sanjay Sharma (Professor, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies). Details of individual talks are provided in the box below.

From 16:15, we’ll move to the CDI Stream Room (FAB 1.16) for a panel discussion on Creativity and AI, featuring a diverse group of academic speakers from multiple disciplines. Panelists include: Chris Bilton (Professor of Creative Industries, CMPS); David Orrego-Carmona (Reader, Translation Studies, SMLC); Camilla Pasut (Doctoral researcher, WBS): Caroline Summers (Associate Professor, Translation Studies, SMLC); and Isleide Zissimos (Senior Teaching Fellow, Economics).

The event will conclude with the launch of Hybrid Encounters, the first CDI-TV publication from the Centre for Digital InquiryLink opens in a new window, consisting of a creative collaboration of talking humans and listening machines.

After the event there will be casual drinks and refreshments, giving you time to meet new potential collaborators and continue the conversations.

Speakers, timings and session details may be subject to change as the programme is finalised.

Places are limited so please register now Link opens in a new windowto secure your spot! We will be in touch to confirm if your booking is successful. Hope to see lots of you there!

The event is organised by the Digital, Data Science & AI Spotlight.Link opens in a new window

Key Objectives

By the end of the event, participants will:

Encounter a wide range of digital and interdisciplinary research happening across the University with diverse methodologies.
Gain fresh perspectives and inspiration from researchers working in different fields, helping spark new ideas, collaborations and approaches.
Build new connections with colleagues who share an interest in digital, data‑driven and AI‑related research, from a rich variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
Develop a richer understanding of how humans, societies and machines intersect, and what this means for research, creativity, and future work.
Take away practical insights into emerging methods, tools and concepts that could inform or enhance their own research projects.

Impulse talks

Kristian Romano: The Statistical Advisory Clinic

Statistics and Data Science are essential across scientific fields, as they provide the tools to analyse data, enabling researchers to draw evidence-based conclusions.

The Statistical Advisory Clinic currently offers statistical advice to PhD students and ECR across the University, provided by Statistics PhD students. This initiative supports high-quality interdisciplinary research and fosters collaboration across departments. It also helps Statistics PhD students develop skills for working in interdisciplinary teams, such as the ability to explain complex concepts to non-statisticians with clarity and empathy, and awareness of scientific problems in other fields

Sanjay Sharma: Down the Rabbit-hole of Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity can feel like going down a rabbit hole: full of detours, unexpected encounters and surprising outcomes. A key question is: what can interdisciplinarity help a research project do? I reflect on what it means to work interdisciplinarily by considering the challenges of bringing different perspectives into dialogue. While this can open up inventive approaches, it can also unsettle familiar assumptions and ways of defining a problem. That 'disorientation', however, can be productive: it pushes us to think more about how knowledge is made, why different perspectives matter, and what interdisciplinary research makes possible.

Federica Coluzzi: Digital Feminist Recovery in Practice: Building the Modern Beatrices Archive

The Modern Beatrices Archive leverages large‑scale bibliographic datasets, rich metadata, and computational tools, including network analysis and GIS‑based mapping, to recover and visualise the transnational contributions of women who shaped Dante’s reception, offering a model at the intersection of literary studies, digital humanities, and data‑driven cultural analysis. It highlights how digital feminist recovery work benefits scholars across disciplines, from literature and history to data science, feminist studies, and archival practice, by using interactive visual tools and multilingual digital storytelling to reveal previously invisible patterns of influence, authorship, and connectivity.

Siddharth de Souza: Building a governance lexicon for Digital Public Infrastructures

This talk will discuss an on-going project focussed on developing a governance lexicon for Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI). It will discuss why governance matters in discussions on DPI, and how building poly-centric governance approaches can enhance multi-stakeholder participation.

The talk will also discuss the value of lexicons and argue for why such instruments provide an opportunity to build plural, contextual, and reflective of approaches to governance.

Scott Brooks