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Daniela Boraschi

Daniela Boraschi

Research Associate

Qualifications

  • PhD in Sociological Research (University of Essex)
  • MA Media Culture and Communication (Institute of Education UCL)
  • BA (Hons) Graphic Design (Camberwell College of Arts UAL)
  • BTEC Diploma in Art & Design (Chelsea College of Arts & Design UAL)
  • Diploma di Istruzione Liceale Scientifica - Liceo Scientifico G. Ulivi Parma Italy

Memberships/Professional Bodies

Post-Doctoral Affiliated Member of Clare Hall 
Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Personal profile

My research examines the everyday practices of biomedical discovery science. As a careful observer, engaged collaborator, and imaginative designer, I explore how routines, questions, and decisions shape scientific knowledge and ethical responsibility, and how these practices might become sites for collaborative ethical reflection and creative intervention. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), education, and design theory, I approach this research as a space in which sociological inquiry, creative practice, and public engagement mutually inform one another. This approach has been shaped through more than twenty years of collaborative work across academia, educational publishing, and the creative sector. 

My CHASE AHRC-funded PhD (2019) on the history of cervical cancer prevention examined the construction of evidence around HPV-based technologies, highlighting the inseparability of knowledge-making and ethical responsibility, and foregrounding the need for earlier and stronger connections between science and society. My postdoctoral research extends this work into machine learning for biomedicine. While AI ethics is often framed through regulation and risk management, many ethical and epistemic challenges emerge through the ordinary yet consequential decisions of early-stage research - in the choice of datasets, the design of models, the adjustment of parameters, and the imagining of future applications. In collaboration with scientists, creative practitioners, and public engagement scholars, I develop experimental tools and methods that support reflection on these challenges. This work seeks to move beyond compliance-based governance by framing ethical responsibility as an ongoing process of dialogic reflection, negotiation, care, and learning within scientific practice.

Running throughout my work is a commitment to education understood not simply as the transmission of knowledge, but as a shared practice of reflection, participation, and growth. Since joining the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge as a Research Associate within the Kavli Centre for Ethics Science, and the Public (2022-2026), and as an Isaac Newton Trust Postdoctoral Research Associate affiliated with CEDiR, I have developed collaborative projects and public engagement initiatives that bring together researchers, creative practitioners, and wider publics to reflect on the ethical and social dimensions of emerging science and technology, including ‘The Hopes and Fears Lab’ and the Alumni Festival debate “This House believes that public opinion has no place in science”.

Prior to this, I held positions in the Departments of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and the University of Essex, alongside design roles developing participatory mapping projects with communities undergoing regeneration, and designing numerous science books for young readers.

Academic Area/Links

  • The Ethics, Science, and the Public Project – Faculty of Education
  • Cambridge Educational Dialogue Research (CEDiR) Group
  • Science, Technology and Society Cambridge Network (SCaN) - Organising Committee Member
  • Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science and the Public (2022-March 2026)
  • Research and Dialogue - Wellcome Connecting Science at the Sangear Institute (2022-2025)

Postgraduate

  • I will be teaching and supervising students in the areas related to my research topics

Research Interests 

  • Ethnographic methods for researching scientific innovation
  • Ethics in biomedical discovery science
  • Dialogic and participatory approaches to ethics and governance inwithin discovery science
  • Creative and design‑led approaches to Responsible AI
  • Designing for dialogue in science and technology

Current Research Project(s)

  • 2022–2027 | Ethics Beyond Compliance: Embedding Dialogic Reasoning in Discovery Science on Biomedical Digital Twins - This project develops new approaches to AI ethics in discovery science, moving beyond “tick-box” compliance toward ethical reflection embedded within scientists’ everyday research decisions. Led by Dr Daniela Boraschi, it brings together AI scientists, public engagement scholars, creative strategist Julian Borrà, and internationally recognised graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook - whose work has been influential in exploring the social and political role of design (website here) - to develop creative and design-led methods that support dialogic and reflexive engagement with the ethical implications of biomedical AI research. The project was awarded the Best Poster Award by the UKRI-funded Digital Twins Network (DTNet+) committee, in partnership with Cambridge University Press, at the Perspectives on the Societal Impact of Digital Twins Conference at Anglia Ruskin University (2026).

Past Engagement projects

With the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public 

  • 2026 | The (Un) Ethical Science Tour with Uncomfortable Cambridge for the Cambridge Festival. Link here.
  • 2025 | The Cambridge University Alumni Festival Debate: ‘This House believes that public opinion has no place in science’ (noes 89 – ayes 59). Link here.
  • 2023-2025 | The Hopes and Fears Lab. Link here.

Past art-based citizen science projects

With Dr Christian Nold & cultural organisations 

  • 2018 – 2019 | DoomsDay Blockchain, Collusion, Cambridge
    Artistic research exploring blockchain insertions. Link here.
  • 2009 | Sensing the Future of Hedehusene, Copenhagen International Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark 
    A 6-month collaborative citizen-science project developing a town-scale air & noise pollution monitoring network with real-time citizen voting on the urban environment.
  • 2008 | The Brentford Biopsy, Watermans Gallery, London, UK 
    A participatory mapping project about the ‘social body’ and the urban environment. Link here.
  • 2007 | Stockport Emotion map, Stockport Council. Stockport, UK
    Over a period of two months in summer 2007, about 200 people took part in six public mapping events about the emotions, opinions and desires of local people. Link here.

Academic publications

Biomedical AI & Ethical Responsibility

Dialogue, Design & Engagement

  • Milne, R., Galloway, C., Rashid, M., Boraschi, D., Burch, C., & Middleton, A. (2024). The hopes and fears lab: Enabling dialogue on discovery science. JCOM: Journal of Science Communication, 23(07), N05. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.23070805

Public Engagement in Genomics

  • Costa, A., Atutornu, J., Bircan, T., Boraschi, D., Henriques, S., Milne, R., et al. (2024). From “inclusion in what” to “equity in what”: (Re)thinking the question of in/equity in precision medicine and health. The American Journal of Bioethics, 24(3), 89–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2024.2303147
  • Middleton, A., Adams, A., Aidid, H., Atutornu, J., Boraschi, D., Borra, J., et al. (2023). Public engagement with genomics. Wellcome Open Research, 8, 310. 
    https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.19473.2
  • Middleton, A., Costa, A., Milne, R., Patch, C., Robarts, L., Tomlin, B., Henriques, S., Atutornu, J., Aidid, U., Boraschi, D., et al.  (2023). The legacy of language: What we say, and what people hear, when we talk about genomics. HGG Advances, 4(4), 100231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xhgg.2023.100231
  • Milne, R., Aidid, U., Atutornu, J., Bircan, T., Boraschi, D., Costa, A., et al.  (2023). What difference can public engagement in genome editing make, and for whom? The American Journal of Bioethics, 23(7), 58–60.https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2023.2207545

Digital Media and Education

  • Selwyn N. Boraschi D. and Özkula S. (2009). Drawing digital pictures: an investigation of primary pupils’ representations of ICT and schools. British Educational Research Journal 35 (6) 909-928. doi: 10.1080/01411920902834282.Selected Book Design

Selected book design

  • English for Everyone Course Book Level 4 Advanced: A Complete Self-Study Programme, Dorling Kindersley (DK) (2016), ISBN-10: ‎9780241242322, ISBN-13: 978-0241242322, Project designer and book designer 
  • Heads Up Philosophy, Dorling Kindersley (DK) (2014), ISBN-10: ‎1465424482, ISBN-13: ‎978-1465424488, Book designer
  • Heads Up Psychology, Dorling Kindersley (DK) (2014), ISBN-10: ‎1465419934, ISBN-13: ‎978-1465419934, Book designer 
  • Knowledge Encyclopedia, DK Smithsonian Knowledge Encyclopedia, Dorling Kindersley (DK) (2013), ISBN-10: ‎9781465414175, ISBN-13: ‎978-1465414175, Project designer and book designer 
  • Everything You Need to Know About Snakes: And Other Scaly Reptiles, Dorling Kindersley Children (DK Children) (2013), ISBN-10: ‎1465402462, ISBN-13: ‎978-1465402462, Book designer 
  • Human Body a Children Encyclopedia, Dorling Kindersley (DK), (2012), ISBN-10: 1405391510, ISBN-13: 9781405391511, Book designer 
  • My tourist guide to the dinosaur world, Dorling Kindersley Children (DK Children) (2012), ISBN-10: 1409376303, ISBN-13: 9781409376309, Book designer 
  • Cool Tech: Gadgets, Games, Robots and the Digital World, Dorling Kindersley Children (DK Children) (2011), ISBN-10: ‎1405367857, ISBN-13: ‎978-1405367851, Role: Book designer 
  • Amazing Space. Everything you never knew about space, Dorling Kindersley (DK) (2011), ISBN-10: 1405362642, ISBN-13: 9781405362641, Book designer 
  • The Incredible Pop-Up Body Book, Dorling Kindersley Children (DK Children) (2011), ISBN-10: ‎9781405368162, ISBN-13: ‎978-1405368162, Book designer 
  • Human body 3-D Pops, Dorling Kindersley (DK) (2011), ISBN-10: ‎1405363045, ISBN-13: ‎978-1405363044, Book designer 
  • Danger! Dorling Kindersley Children (DK Children) (2010), ISBN-10: ‎0756667399, ISBN-13: ‎978-0756667399, Book designer 
  • This Book Made Me Do It, Dorling Kindersley Children (DK Children) (2010), ISBN-10: ‎0756668816, ISBN-13: ‎978-0756668815, Book designer