In this episode of the Podcast, Seth interviews Alex Nielsen. Alex is a lead project scientist at Old Dominion University in the Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center. He is currently pursuing a PhD in scientific and technical communication from Old Dominion University. Alex’s help has also been invaluable in developing this podcast, and he has been one of our earliest advisers.

In this interview, Seth talks to Alex about the aesthetics of DIGETHIX and more broadly about the concept of digitality. In other words, how has our current means of communication affected the ways in which we think about each other and even the very ways we think. The key questions for this episode are: what does it mean for something to be digital? What does it mean to expose otherwise invisible digital markers? What does it mean to have our relationships mediated digitally? If you would like to follow along with this conversation, you can find some of the images that we discuss at https://digethix.org/gallery/. 

If you would like to respond to this episode, you can email us at digethix@mindandculture.org, and you can find us at twitter.com/digethix and facebook.com/digethix.

Potentially Help Resources:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/760702.Goodbye_to_Berlin
https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363517842/for-decades-kodak-s-shirley-cards-set-photography-s-skin-tone-standard
https://www.bl.uk/sacred-texts/articles/biblical-illumination
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45123/hymn-to-intellectual-beauty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

DIGETHIX

DIGETHIX 4: Digitality, Photoshop, and the Audiences of Our Making

Seth interviews shaunesse’ jacobs. shaunesse‘ jacobs is a Ph.D. student in the Constructive Theology and Ethics track at the Boston University’s School of Theology. She earned her Bachelor’s degree from Emory University, where she also completed a Master’s of Theological Studies and a Master’s in Bioethics. She is interested in communal incorporation of religious practices and theological doctrines when facing injustices in the U.S. healthcare system, specifically around the issue of black maternal mortality. This is part one of a two-part look at how questions of race are intertwined with healthcare. 

In this interview, Seth talks to shaunesse about black maternal mortality in the US. Maternal mortality refers to the rate of death  in childbirth per 100,000 pregnancies.  The key questions for this episode are: what factors lead to discrepancies in hospital care? Why would doctors differ in their assessment of the pain that is reported by their patients? How does the question of race intertwine with the care that someone receives? What does it mean to have trust in the doctor-patient relationship?

Potentially helpful links:

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-why
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html
https://www.cdc.gov/healthequity/features/maternal-mortality/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm?s_cid=mm6835a3_w

Contact us: 

facebook.com/digethix
twitter.com/digethix
instagram.com/digethixfuture
EMAIL: digethix@mindandculture.org

DIGETHIX: Conversations on our Technological Future

DIGETHIX 5: Black Maternal Mortality and the Informatic Problem of Personal Experience

In this episode of the Podcast, Seth interviews Muhammad Ahmad. Muhammad is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Washington and a Research Scientist at KenSci. His research areas are machine learning in healthcare, accountability and ethics in AI. His recent work is focused on foundations of machine learning and cross-cultural perspectives on AI. Muhammad’s work combines academic rigor with extensive experience in deploying machine learning systems at scale in the healthcare sector and thus first-hand knowledge of many moral and ethical dilemmas that come with it. He has published over 50 research papers in machine learning and artificial intelligence. He has a PhD in Computer Science from University of Minnesota. This episode will be the second part of our look at race and healthcare.

In this interview, Seth and Muhammad explore a variety of topics. Muhammad talks about how he eventually turned his focus towards healthcare, specifically addressing discrepancies in care between different ethnic groups. He explains many technical problems in machine learning, including the challenges to applying different definitions of fairness. The key questions to this episode are: how has data served to both obscure and to illuminate discrepancies on healthcare? How can machine learning enhance our understanding of complex social problems? 

Contact us: 

facebook.com/digethix
twitter.com/digethix
instagram.com/digethixfuture
EMAIL: digethix@mindandculture.org

Music: "Dreams" from Bensound.com

DIGETHIX 6: Using Data to Address Inequities in Healthcare with Muhammad Ahmad

DIGETHIX creates conversations on technology and ethics. We interview academic and industry experts to create case studies for public discussion. These case studies cover topics such as privacy, research practices, disparities in healthcare, and more.