Welcome to Dr Sam Martin, UKRI Smart Data Research Fellow

We are delighted to welcome Dr Sam Martin, a UKRI Smart Data Research Fellow, who is joining DISC for a fully funded Fellowship to explore AI-driven visual misinformation. Dr Martin is a digital sociologist and generative AI artist. She specialises in Big Qual analysis of public health discourse and AI literacies. Alongside her research on visual misinformation, she creates AI-assisted digital art and video, including a current collaboration with Cincinnati Opera House.

Dr Martin has already engaged with DISC in several short-term and ongoing research and public engagement initiatives, working with Dr Adi Kuntsman and Dr Jessica Elias on AI-driven visual misinformation in political, social and community contexts. Dr Martin’s pioneering new project will significantly expand DISC’s current work on AI technologies, misinformation, digital policy, and cutting edge digital methodologies. In her own words:

I’m very happy to have been awarded a UKRI Smart Data Research UK Fellowship to explore how AI-generated visual misinformation spreads across social media and shapes public health discourse. My 15-month feasibility study, “Synthetic Realities,” will develop Synthetic Discourse Analysis, a new methodology combining AI detection tools with qualitative discourse analysis to track synthetic visual vaccine misinformation across platforms.

During my time at DISC, I will be building on my work with the AI Literacies initiative and the Visual AI Literacy toolkit developed through AHEAD, co-designing community detection methods and digital literacy resources for those most affected by AI-generated health misinformation.