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Dr. Jennifer Cearns is a Lecturer in AI Trust and Security and Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester, and a Visiting Professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Her research bridges digital anthropology with investigations into AI's societal impacts, including intimacy, trust, grief, and kinship in human-AI relationships. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the US, with a focus on Cuba's socio-economic dynamics and digital-material exchanges. Cearns holds a PhD from UCL (2020), an MSc and BA from Oxford University, and has consulted in the technology industry for over a decade.
Her research explores themes like AI in dementia care, embryo selection ethics, and the privatization of Cuban housing. She has published extensively, including her monograph Circulating Culture (2023), which examines cross-border exchanges between Cuba and the US. Awards include the Arthur Maurice Hocart Prize (2019) and Roseberry Nash Award (2020). Cearns actively engages in public discourse through media appearances and academic conferences, addressing topics like AI’s emotional dimensions and digital surveillance.
She supervises PhD students in areas such as AI ethics, kinship studies, and Latin American socio-political issues. Current projects include a book on Cuba’s evolving values and collaborations on AI’s epistemological challenges. Cearns’ work contributes to UN SDGs related to education and sustainable development through her research on technology’s societal impacts.
