Positions and Roles

• 2026: Professor of Empirical Computational Ethics; Goethe University Frankfurt; C3S Center for Critical Computational Ethics
• 2022 - 2025: Assistant Professor of Ethics & Data Science; University of Amsterdam (UvA); Media Studies Department Coordinator: MA Cultural Data & AI. Group Leader: Empirical Ethics, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Studies.
• 2022: Lecturer; Department for Science, Technology, & Society; Technical University Munich
• 2020 - 2022: Senior Researcher; International Center for Ethics in the Sciences & Humanities; University of Tübingen.
• 2015 - 2019: Research Associate; Department for Social Sciences; Institute of Political Science; Goethe University Frankfurt (GU).
• Parental Leave: 1.6.2015-12.08.2016
• Parental Leave: 3.7.2017.-16.10.2018
• 2012 - 2015: PhD-Researcher, DFG Training Group “Privacy & Digitization”, Passau University

Education

• Dr. Phil., Aug. 2016: Passau University, DFG-Training Group: Privacy & Digitization; summa cum laude
• Master of Arts, 2011: Philipps-University Marburg; Anthropology, Peace- & Conflict Research
• Bachelor of Arts, 2008: Philipps-University Marburg; Comparative Studies in Cultures and Religions

Fields:

• Science & Technology Studies
• Diversity
• AI Ethics
• Responsible AI
• Language Technology
• Privacy
• Critical Data Studies
• Platform Studies
• Addiction & Addiction Therapy

Methods:

• Ethnography
• Computational Methods
• Value Sensitive Design

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles and Conference Proceedings

• Paula Helm & Selin Gerlek (2026). EMPIRICAL AI ETHICS. Relationality, Care, Transformation. Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society. Cambridge University Press (under review).
• Benjamin Lipp, Paula Helm, Athanasios Karafillidis & Roser Pujadas (2025). De-centring the interface. Towards the integrated study of interfacial relations. Information, Communication & Society, 0(0), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2413110
• Paula Helm (2024). How platform power undermines diversity-oriented innovation. Internet Policy Review, 13(2). Special Issue (Ed. Thomas Poell, Jose van Dijck, Robyn Caplan, David Nieborg): Theorizing and Locating Platform Power. https://doi.org/10.14763/2024.2.1780
• Paula Helm, Benjamin Lipp & Roser Pujadas (2024). Generating Reality, Silencing Debate. Synthetic Data as Discursive Device. Big Data & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951724124944
• Paula Helm, Gábor Bella, Gertraud Koch & Fausto Giunchiglia (2024): Language Technology and Diversity. How Language Modelling Bias Causes Epistemic Injustice. Ethics Inf Technol 26, 8 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09742-6
• Gertraud Koch, Gábor Bella, Paula Helm & Fausto Giunchiglia (2024): Layers of Technology in Pluriversal Design. Decolonising AI Language Technology with the Live Language Initiative. Journal for Co-Design, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2405.01783.
• Gábor Bella, Paula Helm, Gertraud Koch & Fausto Giunchiglia. (2024). Tackling Language Modelling Bias in Support of Linguistic Diversity. In The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’24), June 03–06, 2024, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3630106.3658925
• Paula Helm & Tobias Matzner (2024). Co-addictive human–machine configurations: Relating critical design and algorithm studies to medical-psychiatric research on “problematic Internet use”. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231165916
• Vickers, Peter, Ludovica Adamo, Mark Alfano, ... Paula Helm, ... et al. (2024). “Development of a Novel Methodology for Ascertaining Scientific Opinion and Extent of Agreement.” PLOS ONE 19(12): e0313541. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0313541.
• Paula Helm, Amalia De Götzen, Luca Cernuzzi, Salvador Ruiz Correa, Shyam Diwakar & Daniel Gatica-Perez (2023). Diversity and Neocolonialism in Big Data Research. Big Data & Society.  https://doi.org/10.1177/205395172312068
• Paula Helm, Loizos Michael & Laura Schelenz (2022): Diversity by Design? Balancing the Protection and Inclusion of Users in Online Social Networks, in: Proceedings of the 2022 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, Oxford, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1145/3514094.3534149
• Maximilian Fischer, Simon Hirsbrunner, …, Daniel Keim & Paula Helm (2022): Promoting Ethical Awareness in Communication Analysis: Investigating Potentials and Limits of Visual Analytics, in: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency, Seoul, South Korea. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533151
• Paula Helm & Thilo Hagendorff (2021): Beyond the Prediction Paradigm. Chances and Risks of AI for Criminal Investigation, in: Luciano Floridi, Jeff Ward, Cynthia Rudin (eds.): Artificial Intelligence and the Rule of Law. 84 Duke Law and Contemporary Problems. Duke University Press, 1--17. 
• Katharina Bräunlich, Tobias Dienlin, Johannes Eichenhofer & Paula Helm (2020): Linking Loose Ends. An Interdisciplinary Privacy and Communication Model, in: New Media & Society, 22(9): 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448209050
• Paula Helm & Sandra Seubert (2020): Normative Paradoxes of Privacy. Literacy and Choice in Platform Societies, in: Surveillance & Society, 2020, 18(2): 185-198. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v18i2.13356
• Paula Helm (2020): Sobriety versus Abstinence. How 12-Stepper Negotiate Recovery Across Groups, in: Addiction Research & Theory, 2019, 27(1): 29-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2018.1530348
• Paula Helm (2018): Treating Sensitive Topics Online. A Privacy Dilemma, Ethics & Information Technology, 20(4): 303-313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9482-4
• Paula Helm (2017): What can Self-Organized Addiction Therapy Groups teach us about Anonymity? In: Theory & Politics in Organization. 17(2): 327-350.
• Paula Helm (2017): Group privacy in Times of Big Data, in: Digital Culture & Society. 2017, 16(2): 137-152. https://doi.org/10.14361/dcs-2016-0209
• Sandra Seubert & Paula Helm (2017): Privatheit und Demokratie, in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. 17(2): 120-124.
• Paula Helm (2017): Transparenz und Anonymität: Potentiale, Irrtümer, Grenzen, in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. 17(2): 142-152.
• Paula Helm (2016): Addiction as Emotional Illness: The Testimonies of Anonymous Recovery Groups (2016) in: Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. 2016, 236(1): 79-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347324.2016.1114314
• Paula Helm (2016): Freiheit durch Anonymität? Privatheitsansprüche, Privatheitsnormen und der Kampf um Anerkennung, in: West-End. Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 16(1): 133-144.
• Paula Helm (2015): Die utopischen Sicherheitszwänge selbstidentifizierter Süchtiger und das Wagnis der Anonymität, in: Paragrana. Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie, 24(1): 58-69.

Book Chapters/Handbook Entries

• Paula Helm, Beatrice Bonami, Roanne van Voorst, Adriano da Silva: Introduction. Crafting Alternative Futures through Mutual Learning. In: Beatrice Bonami, Paula Helm, Roanne van Voorst, Adriano da Silva (eds.): Reimagining Knowledge in the Amazon Rainforest. Crafting Alternative Futures. Leuven University Press (under contract)
• Selin Gerlek, Paula Helm (2026): Matters of Concern. Modes of Inquiry. On the Formation of Empirical Ethics, in: Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Studies Anniversary Edition. Amsterdam University Press. (accepted, forthcoming 2026)
• Paula Helm, Martina Klausner & Marion Näser-Lather (2026): Digital Ethnography and Critical Data Studies. A fruitful encounter, in: Elizabeth Buchanan, Natasha Whiteman: Bloomsbury Handbook for Online Research.
• Paula Helm (2026). Privacy and Platform Capitalism. What is at stake for Individuals, Groups and Democracy. Oxford Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Studies. Oxford University Press.
• Paula Helm (2020): Longing for a Selfless Self and other Ambivalences of Anonymity, in: Anon Collective (ed.): Book of Anonymity. Earth/Milky Way: Punctum Books: 401-423.
• Paula Helm (2020): Anonymer Tanz als dekolonialisierende Praxis, in: Gertraud Koch, Johannes Moser & Lara Hansen (Ed.): Welt, Wissen, Design. Hamburg University Press: 168-185.
• Paula Helm (2020): Myth #45: Privacy is dead, in: Busted! The Truth About The 50 Most Common Internet Myths, in: Matthias Kettemann & Stephan Dreyer (ed.). Berlin: Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology/Leibniz Institute for Media Research/Hans-Bredow-Institute, 2019, 202-206 [translated in 8 Languages].
• Paula Helm & Johannes Eichenhofer (2019): Reflexionen zu einem social turn in den privacy studies. Sozialwissenschaftliche-rechtliche Perspektiven, in: Henning, M. et al. (Hg.): Digitalität und Privatheit. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019, 139-165.
• Paula Helm (2015): Mythos und Autonomie im Therapieprogramm selbstgeründeter Suchtgenesungsgruppen, in: Harm-Peer Zimmermann (Hg.): Lust am Mythos. Neuzugänge zu einem populären Phänomen. Marburg: Jonas-Verlag, 2015, 262-270.

Edited Collections/Special Issues

• Paula Helm & Selin Gerlek (2025): Empirical AI Ethics, in: Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society, Cambridge University Press.Call for papers: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-forum-on-ai-culture-and-society/announcements/call-for-papers/empirical-ai-ethics
• Beatrice Bonami, Paula Helm, Adriano da Silva & Roanne van Voorst (2025): Reimagining Knowledge in the Amazon Rainforest. Crafting Alternative Futures. Series: Livable Futures. Leuven University Press (under contract).
• Beatrice Bonami, Nazialo Filizola, Adriano da Silva, Marina Magalhães, Joao Sateré, Josias Sateré, Roanne van Voorst & Paula Helm (2023). Water and Technologies - Community Material for Water and Digital Sustainability in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. https://doi.org/10.0001/99769
• Paula Helm (2020): Leben im Netz, in: Kuckuck. Notizen zur Alltagskultur.
• Sandra Seubert & Paula Helm (2017): Privatheit und Demokratie, in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen, 30/2.
• Eva Beyvers, Martin Hennig, Paula Helm & Carmen Keckeis (2016). Räume und Kulturen des Privaten (2016). Wiesbaden: Spring VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Full Length Book:

Paula Helm (2017): Suchtkultur und Gruppentherapie. Vom anonymen Ich zum anonymen Wir, Wiesbaden: Springer VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

• PI: ELLIOT; WP 5.2: Social and Ethical Dimensions of European Multimodal AI Foundation Models. Funder: Horizon Europe Grant 101214398, 2025-2029.
• PI: Lost without Translation. Exploring Invisible Languages. Funder: Fair and Resilient Societies Funding Scheme, 2025-2028.
  
• PI: Human-Aligned Video AI Lab; WP 7: Value-Aligned Video AI. Funder: UvA Data Science Center 2024-2028.
• PI: Decolonizing Language Technology in Collaboration with Indigenous Communities in the Amazon. Funder: RPG Global Digital Cultures. 2023-2026.

Lectures and courses at Goethe University Frankfurt

• MA STS & Computer Science: If-Then-But-Why (in collaboration with Martina Klausner)
• MA Sociology, STS: Machine Learning as Culture: Ethics and Politics of Large Scale Models

Lectures and courses (University of Amsterdam, 2022-2026)

• Critical Perspectives on Data and AI
• Empirical Ethics of Video AI
• Diversifying Language Technology
• Data Power, Data Justice
• Data & Surveillance

Lectures and courses (Technical University Munich, 2021)

• Making the Invisible Visible: Values in Design
• Making the Invisible Visible: Values in Infrastructure
• Making a Mess with Methods: Ethnography
• Data, AI, Computation

Supervision:

• Ella Streefkerk, working title: "Ethical Assessment and Requirements for Just Multimodal Datasets", Goethe University Frankfurt, 2026-2029.
• Hanna Kochs, working title: “Making the Invisible Visible in the GenAI Supply Chain: Ethics of Human Red-Teaming”, Goethe University Frankfurt, 2023-2027.
• Bokar N’Diaye, working title: “Deep Domestication: A Tale of Algorithms, Alignment and Entangled Narratives”, University of Amsterdam, 2025-2029.
• Dasha Simons, working title: “Empirical Ethics of Value-Aligned Video AI”, University of Amsterdam, 2024-2028.

Examination:

• Guillén Torres: “How datafication is changing the political strategies of marginalized communities in Mexico”, Media Studies Department, University of Amsterdam, 2021-2025.
• Tim Alpherts: “Exploring Socio-Economic Indicators and Neighbourhood Aesthetics via Multi-Modal Computer Vision, Computer Science Department, University of Amsterdam, 2021-2025