Dr Ella Whiteley

Dr. Ella Whiteley is a philosopher who joined the Sheffield Methods Institute in 2023. Before this, they were a Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. Prior to that, they worked on the interdisciplinary 'Invisible Labour Project' at the University of Cambridge, which analysed and developed methods for recording undervalued and underpaid work in academia. In 2019, they completed their PhD in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, investigating the role of salience and attention in ethics and epistemology.

Ella's research interests are primarily in ethics, social epistemology, and political philosophy. Specific areas include the normative dimensions of salience and attention, as well as the philosophy of work. Ella is interested in questions such as: can we be harmed by how others attend to us? Can we mislead someone simply by making the wrong thing salient in our communication? Ought governments nudge citizens to make less politically and ethically biased judgments? What are the more insidious ways in which institutions exploit workers? Most recently, Ella has been working on the topics of sexual objectification and methodologies for uncovering hidden forms of discrimination.