Alison Duncan Kerr

Alison Duncan Kerr serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, and holds a concurrent appointment at the Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity. Previously, she was Founding Director of the St Andrews Institute for Gender Studies and contributed to equality initiatives at The Work Inclusion Project.

Her academic credentials include a PhD from The Ohio State University (dissertation: "Affective Rationality" supervised by Justin D'Arms, William Cunningham, Richard Samuels, and Sigrún Svavarsdóttir), an MA from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (thesis: "Beyond the Meaning of 'Meaning': Rigidity and Semantic Externalism"), and a BA from Smith College with prior study at the University of Oregon.

Kerr's research centers on feminist philosophy and emotion theory, examining how emotions contribute to rationality while exploring intersections with gender, love, sex, logic, and artificial intelligence. Her work emphasizes ethical implications of technology and gender equity, bridging theoretical philosophy with real-world applications in AI governance.

Analysis of her 2021-2022 publications reveals consistent engagement with AI ethics, particularly algorithmic bias in gender contexts, emotional responses to technology, and philosophical foundations of explainable AI within surveillance capitalism frameworks. Key themes include resistance to technological oppression and moral psychology of human-AI interactions.

No scientific awards or honors are documented in her current institutional profile.

Information regarding student advising, research grants, or external funding sources is not provided in available materials. Her prior leadership at St Andrews Institute for Gender Studies indicates institutional development experience, though current research team affiliations at Illinois remain unspecified.