Researcher basic information

• Sonia Zhang

• Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology, The New School for Social Research, Jan. 2026
• M.A. Cultural Anthropology, The New School for Social Research, May 2020
• B.A. Human Sciences, University of Oxford, Sep. 2017

• https://researchmap.jp/soniazhang?lang=en

• https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=202601017082742158

• 81040954

• 202601017082742158

• companion AI
• science, technology and society (STS)
• anthropology
• public health
• ethnographic methods
• interdisciplinarity
• social robots
• loneliness

• Humanities & Social Sciences, Sociology of science, history of science and technology, anthropology science and technology studies (STS)

Research activity information

• May 2026, The New School for Social Research, Stanley Diamond Memorial Award in the Social Sciences for doctoral dissertation
• Sep. 2025, Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought, 2025-26 GIDEST Fellow
• May 2025, Institute for Critical Social Inquiry, 2025 ICSI Fellow
• Jun. 2024, Japan Foundation, Japanese Studies Fellowship
• Mar. 2023, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, JSPS International Fellowship
• Sep. 2020, The New School for Social Research, NSSR Prize Fellowship

• Experiments with Loneliness: Social Robots and the Reimagining of Relatedness in Japan
  Sonia Yuhui Zhang
  2025, [Lead author, Last author, Corresponding author]
  Doctoral thesis
• When an Affect Becomes an Epidemic: Exploring Loneliness and Relatedness in the 21st Century
  Zhang, S.Y.
  Goldfarb, K. E., and Bamford, E., (Eds.) Difficult Attachments: Anxieties of Kinship and Care. Rutgers University Press., 2024, [Peer-reviewed], [Lead author, Last author, Corresponding author]
  English, In book
• 心のインフラとして機能す る寄り添うバーチャルビーイングの創成を目指して
  高橋英之; 中橋侑里; 植田杏奈; ZHANG Sonia Yuhui; 神野和季; 亀尾菜保子
  人工知能, 38, 4, 464, 470, 2023, [Peer-reviewed]
  Japanese, Scientific journal
• How Does Culture Travel? Narratives and Practices of Japan’s Social Robotics in a “Post-Cultural” World.
  Zhang, S.
  R. Hakli et al. (Eds.) Social Robots in Social Institutions: Proceedings of Robophilosophy, 249, 258, 2022, [Peer-reviewed], [Lead author, Last author, Corresponding author]
  English
• Writing Ourselves Out: Collaborative Autoethnography from the Epicenter of a Pandemic
  Beecher, J.; Brando, L.; Norvilaite, V.; Zhang, S.Y.
  Curare, 3, 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
• Childless or ‘free of children’? Self-definition and being ‘childfree’
  Gietel-Basten, S.; Obispo, J.; Wilcockson, C.; Zhang, S.Y.
  Rodgers, J., Cummins, H. and Wouk, J.D. (Eds.) The Truth about (M)Otherhood: Choosing to be Childfree. Demeter Press., 2021, [Peer-reviewed], [Corresponding author]
  English, In book

• チェックリスト式の AI 倫理を超えて
  Zhang, S.Y., 南谷奉良・中村靖子 (編)『生成 AI×ロボティ クス』春風社., 2025, [Lead author, Last author, Corresponding author]
  Japanese, Others

• OriHime is Me: Traversing the loneliness epidemic through robot teleoperation
  Association for Asian Studies Conference, Vancouver, 15 Mar. 2026, English, Nominated symposium
• Thinking Loneliness through Social Robots in Japan
  Social Robots and Emotional AI workshop at Masaryk University, 10 Oct. 2025, English, Nominated symposium
• Defining Intimacy in Social Robotics Research
  Society for the Social Studies of Science Conference, Seattle, 04 Sep. 2025, Public symposium
• Transient Spaces: traversing disability through social robots in Japan
  The Asian Studies Conference Japan, 07 Jul. 2025, English, Nominated symposium
• Love in the Age of LLMs: an anthropological inquiry of AI ethics
  LLMs and Philosophy Conference, Kanazawa, 27 Sep. 2024, Oral presentation
• 孤独に対する認識は世代間で異なるのか?-幼児から高齢者までの「孤独」に関する概念的探究-
  Sonia Yuhui Zhang; 伴碧
  日本応用心理学会, 24 Aug. 2024, Poster presentation
• Conjuring Laboratories of Philosophy: Engaging with Concept Works in a Japanese Robotics Laboratory
  XXV World Congress of Philosophy
  02 Aug. 2024
• 複数「よっともアバター」との交流を通じた帰属感がある空間の構築
  情報処理学会研究報告会, 16 Jan. 2024
• Experimenting with Scepticism: cultivating android science in contemporary Japan
  Pre-conference workshop Society for Social Studies of Science Conference, Honolulu, 08 Nov. 2023
• Loneliness and the Uncanny
  Lonely No More! series at the Center for 21st Century Studies, 30 Mar. 2022
• Philosophical Relationships Between the Robot and the Human
  IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication, 05 Aug. 2021
• Autoethnography from the Epicenters of the COVID-19 Pandemic
  Beecher, J.; Brando, L.; Norvilaite, V.; Zhang, S.Y.
  The New School Memory Studies Conference 2021: Suspended Present, 23 Apr. 2021