Sarah Cunningham‐Burley
University of Edinburgh, Institute of Population and Public Health
Papers
4
Total Citations
329
H-Index
3
About
Sarah Cunningham-Burley is a prominent sociological researcher whose work sits at the critical intersection of health care, artificial intelligence, and robotic technologies. Her scholarship examines how emerging technologies are reshaping human relationships, care practices, and health systems, bringing a rigorous qualitative lens to questions that are often dominated by technical or economic perspectives. Her most influential contribution, "Health Care Robotics: Qualitative Exploration of Key Challenges and Future Directions" (2018), has accumulated over 212 citations, establishing her as a leading voice in understanding the social dimensions of robotic technologies in clinical and care environments. Building on this foundation, her 2021 paper on AI, affect, and relationality (95 citations) broke new conceptual ground by exploring how humans experience embodied and emotional connections with intelligent machines — a question of growing urgency as AI becomes embedded in intimate care contexts. More recently, Cunningham-Burley has challenged techno-utopian and dystopian narratives surrounding AI adoption, advocating instead for "acceptable futures" grounded in stakeholder perspectives across multiple countries. Her sustained body of work offers students and researchers an essential critical framework for navigating the profound ethical and social questions that accompany technological transformation in health and care.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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