Dr Kevin Guyan is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the University of Edinburgh Business School. His research explores the intersection of data and identity, with a particular focus on data practices that engage LGBTQ communities in the UK.
He is the author of Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), which examines the collection, analysis and use of gender, sex and sexuality data. He is currently writing a second book, which explores queer encounters with different classification systems, from hate crime reporting tools to dating apps.
Between 2021 and 2024, Kevin worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow on an international project investigating gender equity policies in the film and TV industry. Before joining the University of Glasgow, he worked for a higher education organisation that focuses on diversity, equality and inclusion among staff and students in universities and colleges. In 2016, Kevin completed a PhD in history at University College London.
He is a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland, sits on Young Scot’s Data Advisory Group and is Chair of the board for the LGBTI human rights charity Equality Network.
Research interests:
I am interested in the datafication of identity characteristics in organisational contexts, the tools used to gather this information (e.g. workplace diversity monitoring forms) and how these methods work in a generative way: they do not merely count, categorise and manage our identities (e.g. ‘gay', ‘Black’ and ‘woman’), they shape how we understand identity and what we collectively do based on that understanding.