Dr Beth Singler wins 2021 Digital Religion Research Award

By Laura Kenworthy 1min read

Dr Beth Singler, Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence and Director of Studies in Theology, Religion and the Philosophy of Religion, has won the 2021 Digital Religion Research Award.

Awarded by the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies (NMRDC), the prize is in particular recognition of Beth's article The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse, which explores how religious continuities and resonances emerge out of artificial intelligence.

Beth's research considers how AI narratives and religion interact now, and how that might change in the future. Her work is unusual in its advancement of knowledge about how religion is expressed in a field that is predominately considered non-religious or atheist.

Beth is the third recipient of the recently established Digital Religion Research Award, created to recognise the scholars whose research and publications promote and expand the field of Digital Religion. The NMRDC is the premier international research network for interdisciplinary scholars and students who study how emerging technologies, religion, and digital cultures interact and intersect. 

Beth will give the annual Digital Religion Research Award Lecture in November 2021 in an online Zoom webinar sponsored by the NMRDC.