About

Dr Jenny Carla Moran is a one-year Postdoctoral Research Fellow housed in the Trinity Long Room Hub at Trinity College, University of Dublin, while she writes her forthcoming book Love in the Time of AI: Essays on What it Means to be Human (anticipating worldwide publication by Haymarket Books in 2027). She is also a Faculty Member at the joined TCD-TU Dublin Centre for the Sociology of Humans and Machines (SOHAM), where she collaborates to co-author studies with colleagues in Social Science and Computer Science, and co-supervises a PhD student.

Prior to this (2023-25), Jenny acted as Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Gender Studies, where she lectured and supervised MPhil students in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies and undergraduates in Human, Social, and Political Science. Her areas of speciality included the feminist canon, critical theory, postcolonial feminism, ecofeminism, and Science and Technology Studies. She also volunteered as a mentor with the Cambridge African Mentorship Programme, supporting under-represented students and prospective scholars in postgraduate applications, career planning, and academic development. During this time, Jenny completed her Postgraduate Certification for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Her research-based evaluations of practice focused on best models for interdisciplinary teaching, active learning, dialogic feedback, academic community-building, and decolonially-informed harm reduction. Jenny takes a care-grounded, liberal arts approach to her pedagogical practice, providing her students and mentees with support to flourish as lifelong learners.

Jenny earned her BA (Hons) in English Studies at Trinity College, University of Dublin, her MA in Postcolonial Studies at SOAS, University of London, and her PhD in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Cambridge, passing her viva with no corrections in November 2023. Her PhD thesis examined the cultural forging of certain, more permissable forms of normative love. It explored how these forms of love become directed toward non-living AI and robots. The thesis argues that, when non-living technological commodities are loved, it becomes more feasible for them to be imagined as human-like beings possessing lives that matter. However, this kind of love can be dangerous, obfuscating the entangled lives of many beings who are dehumanised through the tech industry’s labour chains, products, and imaginaries of the future. Existing outputs stemming from this research can be accessed under Publications. Jenny’s forthcoming book will be extending her findings to consider love for Large Language Models.

Honours and Awards

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Trinity College, University of Dublin (2025-26)
Duke Feminist Theory Workshop Award, Duke University (2025)
Early Career Researchers Seminar Series Award, POLIS Cambridge (2022-23)
Conceptions Funds for Seminar Series, Cambridge Reproduction SRI (2022)
Research Travel Award, Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership (2022)
Graduate Dissertation Fellowship Award. Cambridge Mellon Sawyer Seminar: “Histories of AI: A Genealogy of Power” (2020-21)
Cambridge European & Newnham College PhD Scholarship Award (2019-23)
Arts and Humanities Research Council PhD Studentship Fees Award (2019-22)