Shara is awarded Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship
Shara Merrill, a PhD student in the Humanities Innovation Lab under the supervision of Dr. Dan O’Donnell, has been awarded the prestigious Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship (AGES). This award recognizes outstanding academic achievement of students pursuing graduate studies in Alberta.
Shara’s doctoral research examines how anticipated technological futures reshape social and institutional relations before the technologies themselves are fully realized. Focusing on artificial intelligence as a case study, Shara investigates the disjunction between technological reality and social response, exploring how forecasts, hype, and “sociotechnical imaginaries” become material forces that reorganize labor, authority, and expectations. Through historical comparison with earlier technological transitions, her work complicates technological-determinist accounts and highlights how imagined futures actively govern present-day institutional practices.
