Research specialist at MIT Media Lab and Fellow at Harvard Berkman Centre for Internet and Society, Kate Darling is an expert in the near-term effects of robotics, with a particular interest in the law and social and ethical issues surrounding the sector.
Having graduated from law school with honours and holding a doctorate of sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Kate is a former fellow at Yale Information Society Project. She has an expansive understanding of law, economics and intellectual property, which she shares as an affiliate at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and the current intellectual property policy advisor to the director of MIT Media Lab.
Kate’s primary interest is in how technology intersects with society, and she conducts experimental studies on human-robot interaction, exploring the emotional connection between them. A common theme in her work is the ethics and legal rights of robots.
Her work has featured in publications and websites including Vogue, The New Yorker, The Guardian, BBC, NPR, PBS, The Boston Globe, Forbes, CBC, WIRED, Boston Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, Die Zeit, Japan Times and many more. She is also a contributing writer for Robohub and IEEE Spectrum. In 2017, Kate’s legal work was honoured by the American Bar Association with The Mark T. Banner Award in Intellectual Property.
