Helen Coverdale

Dr Helen Brown Coverdale joined UCL in 2017. Helen previously taught political thought in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and in the Department of Philosophy at King’s College London. She also led on research ethics teaching for a multidisciplinary course at LSE, for an undergraduate research programme at LSE in collaboration with Imperial College London. Helen holds a PhD (Law, LSE), an MA in Legal & Political Theory (UCL) and a BA (Econ) hons specializing in Government (Manchester). Prior to her PhD, Helen worked in the criminal justice sector, and as a senior parliamentary researcher.

Research

Humans are enmeshed in relationships with technology, which will change as technology, particularly machine learning and AIs, develops. Helen has an emerging interest in the ethical qualities of these relationships and applications of technology using citizens’ data, as well as the implications for democratic legitimacy, basic rights, and the social justice. Several aspects dovetail together to produce the accountability and transparency necessary for democratic legitimacy and explainable, ethical systems:

professional ethics and integrity for programmers, data scientists and engineers commercial good practice standards and corporate social responsibility formal legal regulation