Title: 

Automating Ableism: The Institutional Lives of Algorithmic Systems

Abstract:

Automated systems are increasingly used to mediate access to essential public services for disabled people: they determine who qualifies for disability benefits, how patients are prioritized for care, and which families receive housing support. As algorithms become embedded in welfare and healthcare infrastructures, they deepen the reach of institutional powers and define new modes of governance. In this talk, I will examine the institutional forms that emerge when governance is operationalized through algorithms and how everyday people navigate and resist the unequal power terrains these systems create. Drawing on ethnographic research with low-income disabled families seeking disability services, I show how people push back against rigid and opaque systems. Building on these grassroots practices, I explore how technology can be reimagined to help communities build collective power.

Bio: 

Stacy Hsueh is a Transitional Assistant Professor in the Mixed Reality Lab at University of Nottingham. As a human-computer interaction researcher and designer, she interrogates power inequities in computing, with a focus on understanding experiences of persistent insecurity in underserved communities and co-imagining digital futures that center their needs and expertise. Her work has been recognized with Best Paper and Honorable Mention awards at leading computing venues such as ACM CHI and CSCW. Prior to Nottingham, she was a postdoctoral scholar at University of Washington. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Université Paris-Saclay and holds a master’s degree from Sorbonne University and a bachelor’s from UC Berkeley.

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