Dr Ash Watson is a Scientia Fellow and Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney.

Her research explores the intersection of digital technology and social life.

She writes on various topics such as artificial intelligence, civic cultural spaces like archives and libraries, digital futures, belonging, maps, literature, the COVID pandemic, DIY, and more. She has held a number of visiting and affiliate positions including with the University of Glasgow in 2025, the ESRC Centre for SocioDigital Futures at the University of Bristol in 2023, and as an Endeavour Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2017. Ash is Fiction Editor of The Sociological Review. She is an invited Editorial Board Member of Qualitative Research, Journal of Sociology, and DIY, Alternative Cultures & Society. Her debut novel Into the Sea was published by Brill in 2020. She runs the independent zine publisher Frances St Press and is the creator/editor of So Fi Zine, an open-access publication for experiments in social inquiry.