Rebecca Ellis
Biographic Data
| ID | 3721455 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rebecca Ellis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rebecca |
| FAMILY NAME | Ellis |
| SIGNATURE | ELLIS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rebecca Ellis, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, U.K. |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7761-468X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1984 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Introducing generative AI with Markov Chains
This study examined an intervention designed to foster high school students’ AI literacy through foundational text generation models. Using Markov Chains as an entry point, the study supported students’ understanding of predictive modeling and the probabilistic nature of AI-generated text. Using a mixed-methods approach, pre- and post-assessment showed significant gains in students’ self-reported competence and understanding of AI text generation…
Analysing Data With Members of a Stigmatised Community
Participatory research approaches hold potential to better understand society through valuing lived experience. Formula feeding babies is routinely stigmatised in the UK, despite inadequate support to facilitate breastfeeding. Our community science project investigated the safety of powdered infant formula preparation in the home through the completion of an at-home experiment and a research diary with closed and open questions ( n = 151). To add…
Trying to solve the ‘worst situation’ together
The importance of participatory autism research is discussed in relation to a project involving six autistic researchers and five non-autistic university researchers collaborating to investigate anxiety in autistic adolescents. The paper describes the process of establishing a research partnership and the values and philosophy behind this inclusive method of research. Lessons were learnt about neurodivergent thinking and the benefits it brings to…
The safety of at home powdered infant formula preparation
Formula fed infants experience gastrointestinal infections at higher rates than breastfed infants, due in part to bacteria in powdered infant formula (PIF) and bacterial contamination of infant feeding equipment. The United Kingdom National Health Service (UK NHS) has adopted the World Health Organization recommendation that water used to reconstitute PIF is ≥70°C to eliminate bacteria. We used community science methods to co-design an at home ex…
Social reproduction, playful work, and bee-centred beekeeping
Frontline Farmers
This review examines Frontline Farmers: How the National Farmers Union Resists Agribusiness and Creates Our New Food Future, a new book about the activism of the National Farmers Union (NFU) over the past five decades. In this review I highlight the impact of the NFU in campaigns against the corporatization of the food system, their commitment to international and Indigenous solidarity, and the struggles faced by women within the organization. I …
The effect of self-compassion on the self-regulation of health behaviors
The purpose of this review was to systematically review the published research on the effect of self-compassion interventions on health behaviors. A self-regulation intervention was defined as participants engaged in goal-setting behavior, goal-directed behavior, monitoring, and/or adjusting health behavior. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed in this review. Self-compassion interventions were just as effective as other beh…
From responsibility to accountability
Classifying, Constructing, and Identifying Life
Recent accounts of "the biological" emphasize its thoroughgoing transformation. Accounts of biomedicalization, biotechnology, biopower, biocapital, and bioeconomy tend to agree that twentieth- and twenty-first-century life sciences transform the object of biology, the biological. Amidst so much transformation, we explore attempts to stabilize the biological through standards. We ask: how do standards handle the biological in transformation? Based…
Biotagging Manchester
Biotagging used audio-visual equipment to engage a range of individuals in ‘tagging’ plants and animals with specific and local meaning to them. This was an experiment in subverting conventional approaches to biodiversity monitoring with the aim of expanding ideas of both biodiversity and citizen science
Jizz and the joy of pattern recognition
Approaches to visual skilling from anthropology and STS have tended to highlight the forces of discipline and control in understanding how shared visual accounts of the world are created in the face of potential differences brought about by multi-sensorial perception. Drawing upon a range of observational and interview material from an immersion in naturalist training and biological recording activities between 2003 and 2009, I focus upon jizz, a…
Participatory Mass Observation and Citizen Science
The authors outline and reflect upon a new research agenda on participatory mass observation and citizen science as an introduction to the 3 project outlines in this special section of Transactions
Taxonomy, biodiversity and their publics in twenty-first-century DNA barcoding
We examine the crafting of publics in the global Barcoding of Life Initiative (BOLI)—seen as crucial for re-invigorating, and democratizing, early-twenty-first-century taxonomic sciences and hence for actually achieving biodiversity protection. Our approach to the issue of publics differs from that of conventional public understanding of or engagement with science work. Combining science and technology studies with critical political theory allow…
Rethinking the value of biological specimens
This paper explores the shifting values and fragilities of museum biological specimens as they have recently become enrolled in the Barcoding of Life Initiative (BOLI); a global techno-scientific project which seeks to provide the ‘barcode’ to ‘anyone anywhere’ as a ubiquitous species naming device for all species on the planet. The reliance of BOLI upon museum collections for the industrialized high throughput sequencing necessary to rapidly acc…
Caught between the Cartographic and the Ethnographic Imagination
In this paper we document current research into new forms of public engagement presently taking place in UK biodiversity policy. This involves locating the main participants in such patterns of engagement; namely nature, amateur naturalists, and professional biologists and conservationists. Two interwoven and mutually interdependent perspectives or 'imaginaries'-the 'cartographic' and the 'ethnographic'-are presented in the paper to explore the s…
Environmental citizenship in the making
This paper documents research taking place in the midst of a series of shifts in biodiversity policy in the UK. It examines recent attempts to enrol volunteer naturalists and lay citizens into biodiversity action planning, suggesting that such attempts can be seen as a nascent form of environmental citizenship, which is based on the exchange of knowledge of nature among the different communities involved (policy makers, volunteer naturalists and …
Comparable Worth
Personnel Management
Caught between the Cartographic and the Ethnographic Imagination
In this paper we document current research into new forms of public engagement presently taking place in UK biodiversity policy. This involves locating the main participants in such patterns of engagement; namely nature, amateur naturalists, and professional biologists and conservationists. Two interwoven and mutually interdependent perspectives or 'imaginaries'-the 'cartographic' and the 'ethnographic'-are presented in the paper to explore the s…
Jizz and the joy of pattern recognition
Approaches to visual skilling from anthropology and STS have tended to highlight the forces of discipline and control in understanding how shared visual accounts of the world are created in the face of potential differences brought about by multi-sensorial perception. Drawing upon a range of observational and interview material from an immersion in naturalist training and biological recording activities between 2003 and 2009, I focus upon jizz, a…
Participatory Mass Observation and Citizen Science
The authors outline and reflect upon a new research agenda on participatory mass observation and citizen science as an introduction to the 3 project outlines in this special section of Transactions
Classifying, Constructing, and Identifying Life
Recent accounts of "the biological" emphasize its thoroughgoing transformation. Accounts of biomedicalization, biotechnology, biopower, biocapital, and bioeconomy tend to agree that twentieth- and twenty-first-century life sciences transform the object of biology, the biological. Amidst so much transformation, we explore attempts to stabilize the biological through standards. We ask: how do standards handle the biological in transformation? Based…
Social reproduction, playful work, and bee-centred beekeeping
From responsibility to accountability
Personnel Management
Comparable Worth
Environmental citizenship in the making
This paper documents research taking place in the midst of a series of shifts in biodiversity policy in the UK. It examines recent attempts to enrol volunteer naturalists and lay citizens into biodiversity action planning, suggesting that such attempts can be seen as a nascent form of environmental citizenship, which is based on the exchange of knowledge of nature among the different communities involved (policy makers, volunteer naturalists and …
Caught between the Cartographic and the Ethnographic Imagination
In this paper we document current research into new forms of public engagement presently taking place in UK biodiversity policy. This involves locating the main participants in such patterns of engagement; namely nature, amateur naturalists, and professional biologists and conservationists. Two interwoven and mutually interdependent perspectives or 'imaginaries'-the 'cartographic' and the 'ethnographic'-are presented in the paper to explore the s…
Rethinking the value of biological specimens
This paper explores the shifting values and fragilities of museum biological specimens as they have recently become enrolled in the Barcoding of Life Initiative (BOLI); a global techno-scientific project which seeks to provide the ‘barcode’ to ‘anyone anywhere’ as a ubiquitous species naming device for all species on the planet. The reliance of BOLI upon museum collections for the industrialized high throughput sequencing necessary to rapidly acc…
Taxonomy, biodiversity and their publics in twenty-first-century DNA barcoding
We examine the crafting of publics in the global Barcoding of Life Initiative (BOLI)—seen as crucial for re-invigorating, and democratizing, early-twenty-first-century taxonomic sciences and hence for actually achieving biodiversity protection. Our approach to the issue of publics differs from that of conventional public understanding of or engagement with science work. Combining science and technology studies with critical political theory allow…
Biotagging Manchester
Biotagging used audio-visual equipment to engage a range of individuals in ‘tagging’ plants and animals with specific and local meaning to them. This was an experiment in subverting conventional approaches to biodiversity monitoring with the aim of expanding ideas of both biodiversity and citizen science
Jizz and the joy of pattern recognition
Approaches to visual skilling from anthropology and STS have tended to highlight the forces of discipline and control in understanding how shared visual accounts of the world are created in the face of potential differences brought about by multi-sensorial perception. Drawing upon a range of observational and interview material from an immersion in naturalist training and biological recording activities between 2003 and 2009, I focus upon jizz, a…
Participatory Mass Observation and Citizen Science
The authors outline and reflect upon a new research agenda on participatory mass observation and citizen science as an introduction to the 3 project outlines in this special section of Transactions
Classifying, Constructing, and Identifying Life
Recent accounts of "the biological" emphasize its thoroughgoing transformation. Accounts of biomedicalization, biotechnology, biopower, biocapital, and bioeconomy tend to agree that twentieth- and twenty-first-century life sciences transform the object of biology, the biological. Amidst so much transformation, we explore attempts to stabilize the biological through standards. We ask: how do standards handle the biological in transformation? Based…
From responsibility to accountability
The effect of self-compassion on the self-regulation of health behaviors
The purpose of this review was to systematically review the published research on the effect of self-compassion interventions on health behaviors. A self-regulation intervention was defined as participants engaged in goal-setting behavior, goal-directed behavior, monitoring, and/or adjusting health behavior. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed in this review. Self-compassion interventions were just as effective as other beh…
Frontline Farmers
This review examines Frontline Farmers: How the National Farmers Union Resists Agribusiness and Creates Our New Food Future, a new book about the activism of the National Farmers Union (NFU) over the past five decades. In this review I highlight the impact of the NFU in campaigns against the corporatization of the food system, their commitment to international and Indigenous solidarity, and the struggles faced by women within the organization. I …
Social reproduction, playful work, and bee-centred beekeeping
Trying to solve the ‘worst situation’ together
The importance of participatory autism research is discussed in relation to a project involving six autistic researchers and five non-autistic university researchers collaborating to investigate anxiety in autistic adolescents. The paper describes the process of establishing a research partnership and the values and philosophy behind this inclusive method of research. Lessons were learnt about neurodivergent thinking and the benefits it brings to…
The safety of at home powdered infant formula preparation
Formula fed infants experience gastrointestinal infections at higher rates than breastfed infants, due in part to bacteria in powdered infant formula (PIF) and bacterial contamination of infant feeding equipment. The United Kingdom National Health Service (UK NHS) has adopted the World Health Organization recommendation that water used to reconstitute PIF is ≥70°C to eliminate bacteria. We used community science methods to co-design an at home ex…
Analysing Data With Members of a Stigmatised Community
Participatory research approaches hold potential to better understand society through valuing lived experience. Formula feeding babies is routinely stigmatised in the UK, despite inadequate support to facilitate breastfeeding. Our community science project investigated the safety of powdered infant formula preparation in the home through the completion of an at-home experiment and a research diary with closed and open questions ( n = 151). To add…
Introducing generative AI with Markov Chains
This study examined an intervention designed to foster high school students’ AI literacy through foundational text generation models. Using Markov Chains as an entry point, the study supported students’ understanding of predictive modeling and the probabilistic nature of AI-generated text. Using a mixed-methods approach, pre- and post-assessment showed significant gains in students’ self-reported competence and understanding of AI text generation…
Sociology (10 works) · Political science (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Biology (7 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Engineering (6 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Psychology (5 works)