Dr Sandra Leaton Gray is an Associate Professor in Education at the UCL Institute of Education, which is part of the University of London. She teaches on MA, PhD and EdD programmes, supervising students researching topics such as big data and children’s privacy rights, artificial intelligence and education, curriculum, educational attainment, teacher careers, education technology, and educational sociology. She has written widely on the contemporary sociology of education. She is the author of the books Teachers Under Siege (2006) Invisibly blighted: the digital erosion of childhood (2017, with Andy Phippen) Curriculum Reform in the European Schools: Towards a 21st Century Vision (2018, with Peeter Mehisto and David Scott, and Digital Children: A Guide for Adults (2021, with Andy Phippen).
She also has research interests in digital time poverty, education futures, the sociology and ethics of technology, biometrics, artificial intelligence, Big Data, and education in the professions. She is a member of the UK Government’s College of Experts for the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport, and regularly advises leading organisations on matters relating to education, training and assessment, such as the BBC, the NHS, the European Commission, Kaplan, Royal Colleges of Medicine and universities both here and in China. She is a member of the Privacy Expert Group of the Biometrics Institute, an industry body, and also of the Advisory Council of defenddigitalme, which advocates for children’s data digital privacy rights.
She is Principal Investigator of the IOE’s research project Moving Up: secondary school transition processes during the COVID-19 pandemic and you can see the project website here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/departments/curriculum-pedagogy-and-assessment/moving-optimising-secondary-school-transition-processes-during-covid-19-pandemic. She is also Principal Investigator of the IOE’s research project The Future of the Artificially Intelligent Examination and you can see the project website here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/departments/curriculum-pedagogy-and-assessment/future-artificially-intelligent-examination
She is the Chair of the Artificial and Human Intelligence Group of the British Educational Research Association, and she is on the advisory board of the child advocacy organisation defenddigitalme.
