Mercedes is a doctoral student and Shirley Scholar at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research centers around AI in higher education and examines bias in data mining within British universities. Her work specifically investigates education technologies (EdTech) as socio-technical assemblages shaped by social, cultural, and historical practices. As a qualitative researcher, she employs ethnographic mixed methods to discover and map how biases are embedded within EdTech algorithms through their design and iteration processes. Her work is informed by AI ethics, digital sociology, science and technology studies, and critical algorithm studies.
Mercedes is currently a Research Assistant on the ESRC funded project “Universities and Unicorns: building assets in the higher education industry” at Lancaster University. Prior to joining Reuben, she earned her MSc in Digital Sociology with distinction from the University of Edinburgh and a combined BA in Communication & Media Studies and Cultural Studies from Franklin University Switzerland.
