Trust in Moral Machines

Jim Everett, Principal Investigator

Jim A.C. Everett is a Reader (Associate Professor) at the University of Kent. He completed his BA, MSc, and D.Phil at the University of Oxford before completing a Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard University and a Marie Curie PostDoc at Leiden University. Jim specialises in moral judgment, perceptions of moral character, and the moral psychology of artificial intelligence. Jim has received early career awards from the three largest international societies in social psychology (EASP, SPSP, and APS), along with a Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of internationally recognised contributions to the field.
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Dr Edmond Awad, Co-Investigator

Edmond Awad is a Senior Research Fellow at The Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities at University of Oxford (secondment from University of Exeter). Edmond’s research interests are in the areas of Ethics of AI, Computational Social Science and Multi-agent Systems. In 2016, Edmond led the design, development, and research of Moral Machine, a website that gathers human decisions on moral dilemmas faced by driverless cars.
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Pierce Veitch, PhD student

Pierce Veitch is doing his PhD research on the determinants of trust in policy-making AI and the leaders that use them. Pierce is a mixed-methods researcher who uses a range of qualitative and quantitative approaches in his research. Other research interests include the psychological consequences of legally harming animals and psychology related to the adoption and maintenance of plant-based diets.
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Tim-Dorian Knöchel, PhD Student

Tim-Dorian Knöchel is a PhD student focused on Social and Moral Psychology, specifically the strategic use of AI, especially in moral decision-making. He completed a BSc in Psychology and a Research MSc in Behavioural Science at Radboud University in the Netherlands. Before starting his PhD, Tim worked as a research assistant at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour. In wider terms, his research interests include morality, trust, fairness, and inequality, particularly in relation to novel digital technology, how we perceive critical decisions made by it, and how we behave as a result.
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Josie Knight, Placement Student

Josie is a research placement student working with the team for the academic year. Josie began her undergraduate degree in 2023. Her interests include the ethical implications of artificial intelligence in healthcare and the moral considerations surrounding the consumption of animals. Through her placement, Josie is gaining hands-on experience in academic research while contributing to ongoing work within the Trust in Moral Machines project.

Dr Scott Claessens, Postdoctoral Research Associate

Scott Claessens is a researcher in the behavioural sciences with a passion for research methods, data science, and statistics. He studied psychology at the University of Bristol and Newcastle University before moving to New Zealand to complete his PhD at the University of Auckland. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Auckland for two years before moving back to the UK to work on this project.
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Ethan Landes, Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr Ethan Landes is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Psychology focusing on Moral Psychology. Ethan is a philosopher by training, but a psychologist at heart. Before Kent, Ethan was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich under Dr Kevin Reuter studying dual character concepts and developing research methods for experimental conceptual engineering. He completed his PhD in philosophy on the philosophy of philosophy at the University of St Andrews.
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Kathryn Francis

Kathryn Francis is a senior Researcher at the University of Oxford in the Neuroscience, Ethics & Society (NEUROSEC team) and Co-Director of the Design Bioethics Lab within the Department of Psychiatry. She is also co-director of the Wellcome Discovery Platform ‘ANTITHESES' Before joining the University of Oxford, she directed the Moral Minds Lab at the University of Leeds as an Assistant Professor.
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Madeline G. Reinecke

Madeline G. Reinecke is a Moral psychologist cognitive scientist. She earned a PhD from Yale University and became a Postdoctoral Researcher in Collective Moral Development at the University of Oxford.
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