Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Emma Quilty is trained in anthropology and works in the field of feminist science and technology studies. Based at Monash University, she is currently a research fellow in the Centre for Excellence for The Elimination of Violence Against Women working in the technology-facilitated violence and harnessing technology to prevent violence against women workstream. Her research focuses on the gendered and racialised aspects of technology design, development and deployment. Emma’s writing explores technology, power and gender and has been published in AI & Society, Mobilites, and Senses & Society. Her forthcoming book Witch Power: Hexing the Patriarchy with Feminist Magic will be published in the Polity Books gender studies series October 2025.
Emma is an Affiliate of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. Previously Emma worked as a Research Fellow within the on the Future Automated Mobilities project. In this role she developed a critical concept called Pod Man that examines the gendered and racial formations are embedded into technologies like self-driving cars. This concept draws on two reports she led: on automation in transport mobilities scoping study and expert visions of future automated mobilities. As part of this portfolio of work on gender, technology and trust, she co-produced a short film – She’s Not Alone – that was nominated for a number of awards and screened at a number of film festivals including the Sydney Women's International Film Festival and the Women Deliver Arts & Film Festival.
Emma’s work on trust and technology has been published in a number of avenues including AI & Society and the Monash Lens. She also has a book (co-authored with Sarah Pink) under contract titled Can We Trust Technology. She has also worked on the ARC Linkage Project Net Zero Precincts where she led the ethnographic fieldwork. Her research from this project has appeared in the journal Senses and Society and speaks to entangled nature of climate and colonialism.
During Emma’s PhD in anthropology she undertook a four-year immersive journey into contemporary witchcraft, tracing its roots in 1950s England and its emergence alongside second wave feminism to gatherings in the contemporary Australia. Speaking from both her anthropological and personal experience as a witch, Emma illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying both of these social movements: how does the position and power of patriarchy shape everyday life? Her writing on this subject includes discussions of the body and ritual, queer embodiment and performing witchy identities in digital spaces.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
Social Anthropology, PhD
Social Anthropology, 1st Class BA Honours
Research area keywords
- design anthropology
- emerging technologies
- mobilities
- sustainability
- trust
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
-
TFGBV Train the Trainer Evaluation
Flynn, A. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Quilty, E. (Chief Investigator (CI)) & Hutton, L. (Project Manager)
1/11/24 → 30/05/26
Project: Research
-
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence and young people in Fiji
Flynn, A. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Quilty, E. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Kahn, N. (Partner Investigator (PI)) & Ramacake, S. (Partner Investigator (PI))
28/04/25 → 28/04/25
Project: Research
-
Can We Trust Technology?
Pink, S. & Quilty, E., 30 Apr 2025, 1 ed. New York: Routledge. 104 p.Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review
-
The problem with Pod Man
Quilty, E., 2025, In: Mobilities. 20, 2, p. 243-254 12 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile3 Citations (Scopus) -
Trust, artificial intelligence and software practitioners: an interdisciplinary agenda
Pink, S., Quilty, E., Grundy, J. & Hoda, R., 2025, In: AI & Society. 40, p. 439-652 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open Access1 Citation (Scopus) -
Trust as a sensory mode of engaging culturally diverse communities in net zero futures
Quilty, E. & Pink, S., 2025, In: The Senses & Society. 20, 1, p. 1-15 15 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Beyond Pod Man
Quilty, E. (Architect), Bond, T. (Designer) & Patel, J. (Designer), 20 Jul 2024Research output: Non-textual form › Audio / Visual Recording › Other
Open Access
Activities
-
International Conference On Sustainability Transitions 2024
Sharp, D. (Speaker), Quilty, E. (Speaker), Tuckwell, D. (Speaker), Rye, S. (Speaker), Pink, S. (Speaker), Farrelly, M. (Speaker) & Raven, R. (Speaker)
17 Jun 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
-
International Conference On Sustainability Transitions 2023
Sharp, D. (Speaker), Quilty, E. (Speaker), Raven, R. (Speaker), Pink, S. (Speaker) & Farrelly, M. (Speaker)
31 Aug 2023Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
-
She's Not Alone selected for the Sydney Women's International Film Festival
Jeni Lee (Contributor) & Emma Quilty (Contributor)
29 Nov 2023Activity: Community Talks, Presentations, Exhibitions and Events › Performance/exhibition
-
2023 Women Deliver Arts & Film Festival
Jeni Lee (Contributor) & Emma Quilty (Contributor)
17 Jul 2023 → 20 Jul 2023Activity: Community Talks, Presentations, Exhibitions and Events › Performance/exhibition
-
Australian Energy Social Science Symposium
Sharp, D. (Speaker) & Quilty, E. (Speaker)
25 Oct 2022Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to workshop, seminar, course
Press/Media
-
A witch, a yoga practitioner and a meditator on what we can gain from spirituality (ABC Radio - Myf Warhurst)
31/10/18
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Public Engagement Activities
-
Sabrina the teenage witch is back, with a darker look for our times (The Conversation)
25/10/18
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Article/Feature