Research Spotlight: Kevin Guyan

Can you give a brief summary of your career to date, and the journey that brought you here to us at the University of Edinburgh Business School?

I grew up in Aberdeen, Scotland and completed a PhD in history at University College London in 2016. After graduating, I had little interest in pursuing a ‘typical’ academic career and worked for five years for an organisation specialising in diversity, equity and inclusion projects. This job was fast-paced and involved competing for tenders and winning commissions but it taught me a lot about doing research that straddles industry and academia.

In 2021, I joined the University of Glasgow to work on an international project investigating gender equity policies in the film and television industries of the UK, Canada and Germany. Around this time, I grew increasingly interested in the use (and misuse) of data about LGBTQ communities and – in 2022 – published my first book Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action (Bloomsbury Academic). I joined the Business School in March 2024.

If you had to give your ‘elevator pitch’ and explain in layman terms what your research and/or teaching focuses on, how would you answer?

My work explores the intersection of data and identity, with a particular focus on data practices that engage LGBTQ communities. I’m interested in how things like workforce diversity monitoring forms, AI and automated decision-making technologies, and other Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) data initiatives ‘make sense’ of LGBTQ lives when they sit outside neat, binary boxes.

I often feel unmoored from a disciplinary home as most of my works involve a dash of sociology, a splash of science and technology studies, shaken together with ideas from gender and queer scholars, then applied to organisational contexts. However, I see this hot mix of interests as a strength rather than a weakness.

With regard to your work, is there anything exciting in the pipelines that you are working on?

I’ve just wrapped up the draft manuscript for my next book, which explores queer encounters with different classification systems in the UK, from hate crime reporting to dating apps. The book argues that the promise of inclusion – for example, being included in workplace DEI programmes – relies on the willingness of LGBTQ individuals to comply with classification practices that present their lives in ways that ‘make sense’ to (cisheteronormative) systems.

I’ve also been awarded funding to work with amazing colleagues on a series of Queer Data themed events at the Edinburgh Futures Institute in June 2025.

What do you enjoy most about your teaching and/or research? What challenges and excites you across both?

I had the pleasure of supervising MSc students this summer and was reminded of those lightbulb moments when you discover a new way of thinking about a problem. I was transported back to my undergraduate studies in the late 2000s (skinny jeans from Topman, bleach blonde hair and listening to Calvin Harris on an iPod Shuffle) and my first encounter with the field of ‘queer studies’! I love that I’m able to facilitate this learning process for others and promote a way of doing research that is informed by values of social justice, where students have the permission to be political in their work and use their studies in ways that challenge the inequities and harms that exist in the world.

What do you enjoy most about working at UEBS?

I have enjoyed the warmest of welcomes since joining the School. It sounds trite, but being kind and considerate to others is a quality that is too often overlooked in higher education, when – actually – it is fundamental to everything we do. I have particularly valued the close working relationship with professional services colleagues in research support, impact and knowledge exchange, estates and communications. I understand the work I do as a team effort and the sense of community fostered within the School – where you are able to put faces to names – makes this ambition possible.

What advice would you give to your younger self, about to leave home and embark upon further education?

Don’t get hung up on chasing a grand narrative. Say ‘Yes’ to random invites. Recognise that the work we do at university is important but it’s not the most important thing in the world. Don’t miss out on opportunities to have fun.

What one book and one piece of music would you take with you to a Desert Island?

It’s impossible to pick just one but a few books that I keep returning to are Sara Ahmed’s On Being Included, Dean Spade’s Normal Life, and Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein’s Data Feminism. All three books present a powerful critique of mainstream, liberal approaches to DEI work and sharpened my thinking on the politics of ‘who counts’ and in what contexts.

I’m also going to be cheeky and switch-out a piece of music for a Mubi subscription. I’m a big film fan and love having this catalogue of amazing cinema at my fingertips.

If you could invite anyone over for dinner (past/present) who would it be and why?

Who to pick? I’d love to sit round a dinner table with a gaggle of gay male American writers from the mid-twentieth century. The invite list would include fiery figures like Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. The night would be filled with politics, gossip and a steady flow of strong drinks. I’d feel extremely intimidated (and may well end the night in tears) but it would certainly be memorable.

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

I’ve been itching to return to Japan ever since my husband and I first visited Tokyo and Kyoto in 2019. I loved the incongruous mix of futuristic megapolis and serene tranquillity, and could happily survive on a diet of sushi and yakatori. I’m forever thinking of a way to bring ideas from Queer Data to Tokyo (if anyone has any suggestions, get in touch!)

Kevin Guyan is our Chancellor's Fellow.