Dr Ned Barker
Lecturer in Digital Culture and Technology
Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow
Dr Ned Barker is a Lecturer in Digital Culture and Technology in the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. With an undergraduate in Sports Coaching Science, MRes in Social Science Research Methods and a PhD in Sociology of Education, his research explores the complex and changing relations between Technology, the Body, and Society.
Prior to joining King’s, Ned was a Senior Research Fellow at UCL. Working on the InTouch project (ERC grant), he contributed to research on the social character, sensory textures, and societal impact of touch as it is digitally mediated. Here he led research on robotic touch and interactive skin. He also co-chaired UCL’s Collaborative Social Science Research Domain.
Ned currently leads ‘Biohybrid Bodies’, a project supported by the Leverhulme Trust (2021-24). With interdisciplinary collaborators he has been studying the disruptive potentials of emerging (and future) biohybrid systems across various areas of social life. In 2024 Concordia’s Centre for Sensory Studies and Columbia University’s Digital Futures Institute invited Ned to share insights from this project as a visiting scholar.
