Dr Ned Barker is Lecturer in Digital Culture and Technology in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London. His research examines the evolving relations between technology, the body, and society, drawing on his background in Sports Coaching Science (BSc), Social Science Research Methods (MRes), and Sociology of Education (PhD).

Before joining King’s, Ned was Senior Research Fellow at UCL, where he worked on the ERC-funded InTouch project. His research there focused on the social character, sensory textures, and societal implications of digitally mediated touch. He led studies on robotic touch and interactive skin and also chaired UCL’s Collaborative Social Science Research Domain.

Between 2021–24, Ned held a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for his project Biohybrid Bodies, which explored the disruptive potential of emerging biohybrid systems across areas such as sport, industry, and art. This work was developed through interdisciplinary collaborations and shared internationally – for example through visiting positions at Concordia University’s Centre for Sensory Studies and Columbia University’s Digital Futures Institute.

Research interests and PhD supervision

• Technology and the Body
• Novel Biohybrid Systems
• Human Augmentation
• Interdisciplinary Approaches
• Collaborative and Sensory Ethnography

Ned welcomes PhD applications related to the broad interests above.

Teaching

Ned’s teaching activities focus on a variety of issues related to digital culture and technology, this currently includes:

• Digital Intimacies
• Gender and Technology
• Virtual Realities
• Digital Health

Expertise and public engagement

• Ned organised the public engagement activities of the ‘International Conference on Multimodality: Designing Futures’. These offered students and members of the public opportunities to engage with multimodal film, debates, and installations.
• Ned’s research collaboration with artist Joana Burd resulted in cocreated multi-sensory artworks. These have been publicly exhibited in Paris, London, Barcelona, Oxford, and Brazil.

Selected Publications

• Barker N, Parker H. (2024). Hybrid performances in sport: Cybathlon spectatorship for critically imagining technologies for disability futures. Medical Humanities 2024; 50:657-669.
• Barker, N., & Burd, J. (2023). Living Capsules: reflections on an ongoing art-sociology collaboration. Leonardo.
• Barker, N., Pervez, A., Wahome, M., McKinlay, A., Al Haj Sleiman, N., Harniess, P., . . . Love Soper, J. (2023). A Collaborative Research Manifesto! An Early Career Response to Uncertainties. International Journal of Social Research Methodology.
• Barker, N., Jewitt, C. (2022). Future touch in industry: exploring sociotechnical imaginaries of robots that feel. Futures.
• Barker, N., Jewitt, C. (2022). Collaborative Robots and Tangled Passages of Tactile-Affects. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction.