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Michael Arribas-Ayllon

Dr Michael Arribas-Ayllon

Comment
Media commentator

Teams and roles for Michael Arribas-Ayllon

Overview

My research examines how forms of knowledge and expertise shape health, illness and personhood. I have explored these questions across a range of fields, including personalised medicine, digitally mediated care, autism diagnosis, and the social and institutional implications of large language models.

Much of my recent work focuses on how autism assessment and support in Wales are governed through policy and professional knowledge under conditions of scarcity. Related research considers how digital technologies, including generative AI, are reshaping expertise, judgement and decision-making across healthcare and other institutional settings. I also continue to investigate the politics of personalised medicine, including questions of uncertainty, responsibility and family communication in psychiatric genetics.

I welcome PhD applications in medical sociology, science and technology studies, sociology of diagnosis, digital health, AI and society, critical psychology and the social study of biomedicine.

Publication

2026

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Articles

Book sections

Books

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Thesis

Research

Diagnosis, care and the governance of support
A major strand of my current research examines how diagnostic systems are organised through policy, professional knowledge and administrative practice. This work is especially concerned with autism diagnosis and support in Wales, including the governance of assessment pathways, eligibility, access to provision, and care under conditions of scarcity. More broadly, I am interested in how diagnostic categories shape institutional decision-making, redistribute responsibility, and influence how needs, identities and forms of personhood are recognised and acted upon.

Digital mediation, expertise and institutional judgement
A second strand of my research explores how digital technologies are reshaping care, expertise and professional judgement. This includes work on digitally mediated care and the changing organisation of interaction, presence and decision-making in healthcare settings. More recently, I have begun to examine the social and institutional implications of generative AI and large language models, particularly how they reconfigure knowledge, authority, accountability and the conditions under which claims come to be treated as reliable or actionable.

Personalised medicine, psychiatric genetics and biomedical futures
I also continue to research the politics of personalised medicine and the expectations surrounding contemporary bioscience. My earlier work on genetics and genomics explored genetic risk, family communication, professional practice and the social life of uncertainty. This remains important to my current interest in psychiatric genetics, especially questions of responsibility, interpretation and family obligation in the context of mental health. Across this work, I am interested in how biomedical promises are translated into practice, and in the kinds of subjectivity, citizenship and moral responsibility they help to produce.

Biography

Michael Arribas-Ayllon is a Reader in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research brings together medical sociology, science and technology studies and critical social theory. His recent work has focused on autism diagnosis and support, including the governance of care pathways under conditions of scarcity, as well as digitally mediated care and the changing organisation of expertise in healthcare. Recent publications include work on teletherapy and autism diagnosis in Wales.

Earlier in his career, Michael developed a substantial body of work on genetics, genetic testing and personalised medicine. This research examined the social and ethical dimensions of genetic risk, family communication, professional decision-making and the promissory politics of contemporary biomedicine. That strand of work continues in his ongoing interest in psychiatric genetics, uncertainty and responsibility in mental health, and in the wider politics of personalised medicine. His publications in this area include work on psychiatric genetics, genetic counselling and the commercialisation of genomic knowledge.

Alongside this, Michael has an emerging research interest in the social and institutional implications of generative AI and large language models, especially their effects on expertise, judgement and decision-making in professional settings. He has also contributed to public engagement around science and medicine, including public events on direct-to-consumer genetic testing, and his Cardiff profile lists him as a media commentator. He joined Cardiff University in 2004 after transferring from the University of Western Sydney, where he completed an Honours degree in Philosophy and Social Psychology, and he later completed his PhD at Cardiff.

Contact Details

Email [email protected]
Telephone +44 29208 75390