Biography
Jonathan Gray is Lecturer in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London. He is writing a book on Data Worlds and his current research focuses on the politics and social life of public data.
He is also Co-Founder of the Public Data Lab; Research Associate at the Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam) and Research Associate at the médialab (Sciences Po, Paris). More about him can be found at jonathangray.org
Research Interests and PhD Supervision
Jonathan’s work focuses on the politics of public data, including practices, technologies and imaginaries associated with open data. He is particularly interested in how the emerging fields of “data studies” and “critical data studies” can be leveraged to inform “critical data practice”.
He has also contributed to the development of digital methods for social and cultural research – including in the context of digital sociology. He is also interested in other emerging areas of “data work” – including data journalism, and the use of digital data, methods and tools in public policy.
Teaching
Jonathan is currently involved in teaching and developing courses on the politics of data, digital methods, digital sociology, data journalism, digital journalism and the social life of big data.
Expertise and Public Engagement
In addition to his academic work, Jonathan has a professional background in the civil society sector, public policy and data journalism. He is Senior Advisor at the global civil society organisation Open Knowledge International where he has founded and co-founded numerous initiatives, including the Data Journalism Handbook, Europe’s Energy, Open Data for Tax Justice, OpenSpending, Open Trials, The Public Domain Review and Where Does My Money Go?. He is on the Advisory Board of the LSE Impact Blog at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and of the Fair Tax Mark, a non-profit initiative dedicated to promoting tax transparency and fairness. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Open Democracy and has been interviewed by numerous publications and media organisations about his work.