Credits

Jessica Foley

Creator, Host

Jessica is a writer with a background in visual arts and transdisciplinary research working in the area of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) research. As a writer and researcher, she creates space for conversation and creative practice that motivates complex thinking and inquiry around technology, language and relationships. She mobilizes folk, cultural, scientific and institutional knowledges, drawing on fields of conceptual and socially-engaged arts practices, feminist science and technology studies and new materialisms scholarship, environmental humanities and critical pedagogy to explore the complex and shifting realities of ICT research.

A key method in her research and creative practice is Engineering Fictions (and its relative Stranger Fictions), a context/concept sensitive, tale-telling, writing workshop that invites ICT-oriented and engaged researchers to creatively explore topics and materials relating to technology, social, cultural, environmental and political life. Engineering Fictions began as a two-word poem in 2013, and has since become a nomadic conceptual writing workshop that makes space for people to respond creatively and critically to technological research. The process of Engineering Fictions fosters technological awareness through simple acts of storytelling, conversation, constrained writing and improvisation.

Jessica is currently an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow (2018-2020) at MUSSI where she is exploring 'the function of fiction in parsing the worlds of 'smart' technologies' in collaboration with Prof. Rob Kitchin and the Building City Dashboards team. She is a co-founding member of the Orthogonal Methods Group and Writer-in-Residence at CONNECT, Trinity College Dublin, with an open research mandate to generate conditions for different researchers and publics to share ideas, raise questions and open up critical dialogue about ICT research.

Harun Siljak

Co-Host, EDGE Fellow

Harun Siljak obtained his BoE and MoE degrees in control engineering from the University of Sarajevo in 2010 and 2012, respectively, and his PhD in electrical engineering from International Burch University Sarajevo in 2015.

After working at International Burch University and Bell Labs Ireland, he joined Trinity College Dublin as an EDGE Marie Curie Fellow in 2017 to work on his project on complexity and control in distributed massive MIMO.

His research interests include physics of computation, reversibility, wave propagation and nonlinear dynamics. His other interests include popular science and science fiction writing, as well as collaborations with artists and writers.

Catalysts

PEER REVIEW
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Harun Siljak
Co-Host, EDGE Fellow

MENTORSHIP
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Linda Ryan
EDGE training and development Coordinator

Linda Ryan is responsible for the training and career development planning for the Marie Skłodowska–Curie Fellows funded through EDGE. She is based at Trinity College Dublin.

Linda has 10 years guidance and coaching experience. She holds a degree in psychotherapy, an MA in Addiction Studies, an Advanced Diploma in Executive and Career Coaching, and the CIPD Diploma in Learning and Development. She previously ran her own coaching business specialising in employee transformation and engagement.

She has a experience of working in several industries including technology, corporate sports, arts, and employee engagement. She has also worked in the public sector in higher education.

She joins us in CONNECT from Trinity College Career Advisory Services where she supported and coached the student population up to post-doc level on all issues relating to career development.

Linda is a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). She likes to read detective novels, paints in acrylics and is also a qualified barber!

GHOSTS IN THE MACHINES
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Ana Guerberhof
EDGE Fellow

Ana Guerberhof holds a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies on the topic “Productivity and Quality in the post-editing of outputs from MT and TM” from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain. She has published several articles related to this topic in specialised magazines.

She has also worked for more than 20 years in the localisation industry in a great variety of roles such as translator, editor, language coordinator, project manager, resource and vendor manager, and director of operations.

She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow as part of the EDGE programme at ADAPT centre, Dublin City University. Ana’s research explores the role of language in the user experience of software delivered with machine translation and to understand the relationship to usability.

REMAINING USEFUL LIFE
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Anne Kelly
NCAD Gallery Curator

Harun Siljak
Co-Host, EDGE Fellow – bio above

Anne Kelly is Programme Curator at the NCAD Gallery, National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2011–). She has previously worked independently as a curator, artist, educator and arts manager on a wide range of exhibitions, projects and live events; and has also held positions at Kerlin Gallery, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Sculptors Society of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University, all Dublin. She is the recipient of Arts Council of Ireland, and CREATE: National Development Agency for Collaborative Arts and County Council awards. Kelly is an NCAD Fine Art graduate and earned an MSc in Computer Science, Trinity College Dublin.

Contributors

There were over 30 contributors to the Stranger Fictions sessions, with each person coming from a variety of different fields and disciplines involving research, from materials science, telecommunications, machine translation and learning, computer and data science, contemporary art, geography, medieval studies, education, engineering and creative writing.

Special thanks to Neil Smyth for photographing the Peer Review, Mentorship and Ghosts in the Machines sessions, and to Kevin Fraser (EDGE Programme Manager) for photographing the Remaining Useful Life session at NCAD Gallery.

About EDGE

EDGE is Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Action, led by Trinity College Dublin on behalf of 10 academic institutions from across Ireland. EDGE is also a training and development programme for scientific excellence, offering a unique combination of interdisciplinary research themes, career development opportunities and industry engagement to the community of Fellows we recruit.

EDGE leverages the strengths and assets of three existing Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) National Research Centres: AMBER, CONNECT and ADAPT. Together, these Centres perform world-leading research on the three main pillars of ICT.

AMBER offers expertise in advanced materials that will play a pivotal role in future systems and devices.

CONNECT’s focus is on future networks that will underpin the services the world needs.

ADAPT brings cutting-edge innovation in digital content.

EDGE Fellows work at the interfaces of the three Centres, in highly interdisciplinary projects, sharing expertise and adding value across the ICT research landscape. Importantly, industry partners have a primary role in defining, executing and supporting the projects, and take an active part in the Fellow’s progression, through secondments, industry events and specialised training.