Responsible Research and Innovation for AI and Robotics in the Health and Care sectors; Science and Technology Studies; Social Anthropology; Ethnography.

I am an experienced ethnographer and an interdisciplinary social scientist specialising in Science and Technology Studies, holding degrees in Social Anthropology (PhD, MSc), Japanese Studies (MSt, MPhil), and Legal Studies (BA). Currently, I am a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Chancellor’s Fellow at The University of Edinburgh, and Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute.

My work focuses on responsible research and innovation for AI and robotics applications in the health and care sectors. Through my work I aim to enable different stakeholders to become part of the co-production of healthcare technologies to inform and shape innovation together. I have been based at Edinburgh Medical School since 2019, first as the Postdoctoral Research Fellow appointed on the Wellcome Trust-funded project ‘AI and Health;’ and then, since 2022, as the Principal Investigator on my Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Humanities and Social Science.

The focus of my Fellowship, titled 'Caring Machines', is to trace the journey of AI and robotics innovation in care, from research laboratories to end-users, while highlighting the ethical considerations and embodied experiences associated with these technologies across different cultural contexts. To conduct the project, between 2022-2024 I carried out 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the UK and Japan, divided into two 9-month blocks in each country. 

Currently, I am also a visiting researcher at the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics and Bayes; a postdoctoral affiliate of the Edinburgh Futures Institute; and a member of the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation. I closely collaborate with teams of roboticists at the Edinburgh School of Engineering, Heriot-Watt University, National Robotarium and Bristol Robotics Laboratory. 

Internationally, in Japan, I collaborate with researchers at the Science and Technology Agency (JST) and AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology). In France, I am a member of the INNOVCARE group (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales). In South Korea, I collaborate with researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. And in Italy, I am a postdoctoral affiliate of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT).

2022 University of Edinburgh - PgCAP & FHEA
2019 UCL - Ph.D. Social Anthropology
2015 University of Oxford - MSc Social Anthropology
2014 Ca’ Foscari University of Venice - MPhil Japanese Studies
2013 Ritsumeikan University - Advanced Japanese Language Course
2012 INALCO Paris - MSt Japanese Studies, Erasmus Scholarship
2011 Ca’ Foscari University of Venice - BA Law and Economics of East Asia

2022-2023 University of Tokyo - Visiting Researcher (7 months)
2022-2024 Edinburgh Centre for Robotics - Visiting Researcher (2 years)
2016-2017 Kyoto University - Visiting Researcher (1 year)

2023-2025: BMedSci, Bioethics, Law and Society, Research Program Director (Edinburgh)
2019-2025: BMedSci, Bioethics, Law and Society, Project Supervisor (Edinburgh)
2019-2025: BMedSci, Bioethics, Law and Society: Foundations of Knowledge, Lecturer (Edinburgh)
2019-2024: BMedSci, Biomedicine, Ethics and Society: Contemporary Issues, Lecturer (Edinburgh)
2017-2019: MA Gender, Society and Representation, Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (UCL)

X: @giulia_de_togni