Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self received a joint doctorate in sociology and personality psychology from Harvard University and is a licensed clinical psychologist.
Her most recent book,The Empathy Diaries (2021), ties together her personal story with her research on technology, empathy, and ethics. Her previous book, Reclaiming Conversation (2015), investigates how social media instigated a flight from conversation that undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity. Previous works include four other books about evolving relationships in digital culture (Alone Together; The Second Self; Life on the Screen; and Simulation and Its Discontents) and one book about the history of psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Politics: Jacques Lacan and Freud’s French Revolution. Turkle has also edited several collections on how we use objects to think with, particularly in the development of ideas about science. These include Evocative Objects; Falling For Science; and The Inner History of Devices. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, the Harvard Centennial Medal, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is currently writing a book on the new world of artificial intimacy – machines that present as both pretend-sentient and pretend-empathic.