My work

I was the Principal Investigator of the Exchange Project (Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council – 2015/2021). In that capacity, one of my main lines of work concerns technologies of governance through genetic and genomic technologies in forensics. I have written extensively about genetic state surveillance in the fabric of suspicion. In particular, I explored political processes of reframing complex collective problems as problems of security (e.g. criminality and terrorism) (1, 2, 3, 4).

I am also interested in regimes of expertise and performativity of ethics by  scientists and police agencies when they deal with controversies around privacy, human rights, and democracy in the governance of crime (5,6).

Other topic that made me busy was scientific and technological advances to capture the very essence of the body (genes) and turn it into information. I inquired how genetic data was used for state surveillance and control of suspect populations. At this respect, one point of the research was the ways national states enact borders through the flows of DNA data and other biometric information shared through ICT infrastructures (7,8)

I also pursue investigation about public engagement with genetics  as concerned publics to what are the legitimate or shady uses of their samples and personal data (9, 10, 11). Besides studying the general citizens’ views, other research strand has focused on imaginaries of DNA technologies of prison inmates. My research in this topic allowed to understand situated positionings of criminalized social groups that are marginalized/silenced/ignored/invisibled by those in power (12, 13, 14).

Other theme of my research are the commonalities and differences between forensic and medical biobanks and ethical issues of public participation (15). In this context, I led the project Forensic DNA databasing in Portugal (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, 2010-2013) and I collaborated with the great teams of the projects ENGaged and DataGov at the Institute for Public Health at University of Porto. 

In the awake of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was involved in interdisciplinary international networks (16,17) that sharpened my understanding of the politics and ethics embedded in scientific and technological solutions to complex collective problems. I led the Portuguese arm of the international Consortium “Solidarity in times of a pandemic” (SolPan), and investigated, in particular, how people performed “publics of science” in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, I am captivated by artificial intelligence’s applications to the analysis of the human face. My past research on forensic geneticists’ work on prediction of human visible characteristics (18, 19, 20) provided some insights and inspiration for my new research.  Now, I want to dig deeper into the politics and power processes related to “faciality” in contemporary societies. 

Algorithmic face processing provokes the discovery of new and old assemblages between the social, the political, and the ethical. On particular, I take interest in exploring the imaginaries enacted by developers of AI, artistic and cultural counter-practices, and particularly vulnerable populations.  For the moment, I am profoundly engaged in creative thinking, and hoping to do future groundbreaking research about the interplays between AI facial technologies and society.