Sarah Immel graduated with her BA in Human-Computer Interaction and Creative Writing from Whitworth in 2023. She was a member of the Honors Program, with her final project focusing on resisting the manipulative frameworks of that commonly populate User Experience. After Whitworth, she entered a Master’s program called “Narrative Futures: Art Data, Society” at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Here’s an inside look at the creative component of her dissertation called “Data Doppleganger,” a textbot she trained on every piece of her own writing she could find.

She’s now pursuing her PhD in the Centre for Doctoral Training in Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing, still at Edinburgh. Her research continues to evolve into exploring digital identity and inviting writers into ongoing debates about the roles, applications, and limitations of natural language processing systems like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

This week she’s hosting a research workshop on campus examining the ways digital identities constrain users and how the field of responsible natural language processing can help address these issues. This two-hour workshop will narrow down the problems of digital identity to the issues that matter most to participants.

In all her projects, Immel utilizes the interdisciplinary skills the Honors Program emphasizes and values, and the degree she received at Whitworth highlights this. Creative Writing and Human-Computer Interaction are two majors that don’t often interact, but that didn’t stop Immel from finding so much success and research potential in this intersection.

Immel proves to us every day how the Whitworth Honors Program can launch students passed their four years with us, and why interdisciplinary study is so important for our futures.