Dr Thao Phan wins 2025 Max Crawford Medal for research on race, gender & algorithmic culture
Author
Date 6 August 2025
The Australian Academy of the Humanities has awarded the 2025 Max Crawford Medal to feminist science and technology studies (STS) scholar Dr Thao Phan for her pioneering work on algorithmic culture and the politics of race, racialisation and technology.
The Max Crawford Medal is Australia’s most prestigious award for achievement by early career scholars in the humanities. Presented annually by the Australian Academy of the Humanities, it
recognises an early-career scholar whose published work contributes to public understanding of their discipline.
An Affiliate at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society at Monash University, Dr Phan has significantly advanced debates on race, gender, and algorithmic culture, uncovering the often-opaque ways platforms like Meta and Google use our data to influence us.
“Platforms use behavioural data to algorithmically target content, but these tools also introduce new ways to classify and discriminate,” said Dr Phan, who is a Lecturer in Sociology at the Australian National University.
“I’m particularly interested in understanding how AI systems and technologies take on practices of racial targeting and classification.”
Dr Phan’s research sits at the intersection of feminist STS, media studies, and cultural studies. Her recent projects examine the racialisation of targeted ads on platforms like Facebook, the ways algorithmic culture shapes public perceptions, and the constructs of gender and race in AI.
“You don’t have to look far to see that platforms are wielding an unprecedented amount of power,” Dr Phan says. “These new tools for seeing and acting on people have profound implications for how we live in the world, significantly shaping our lives, and how we relate to ourselves and others.”
Academy President Professor Stephen Garton AM FAHA FASSA FRSN FRHistS congratulated Dr Phan on the honour.
“Dr Phan is an exemplary scholar whose work offers powerful insights into how algorithmic systems shape our identities, our communities, and our society in opaque and complicated ways. Her work shows the critical importance of humanities scholarship in understanding our increasingly complex world. The Academy is proud to honour her scholarship at a time when this work is more important than ever.”
Dr Phan will be formally presented with the Max Crawford Medal at the 2025 Annual Academy Dinner, in Sydney on Thursday 13 November 2025.
Read the original article published by the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
