Dr Anthony-Paul Cooper is a visiting researcher in the Department of Computing's Future Tech Lab. Anthony-Paul has a background in computer science and social research, with previous research topics including new church use of ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’ space and the use of social media data to better understand church attendance and church growth.

Anthony-Paul has edited, with David Goodhew, 'The Desecularisation of the City: London’s Churches, 1980 to the Present' (published by Routledge, 2018).

More recently, Anthony-Paul has written a new book, with Erkki Sutinen, 'Digital Theology: A Computer Science Perspective' (published by Emerald Publishing, 2021).

Anthony-Paul’s current research is focussed on exploring the role of technology in Christian prayer and is intended to take forward the emerging field of digital theology by providing new insight into the perceptions of technology users around the role which technology and the online environment plays in their prayer lives while generating new evidence to better understand the ways in which people pray online, with a particular focus on textual content and the inclusion of images, videos and emojis in online prayer content.

Anthony-Paul has teaching expertise in the field of digital theology.

Current PhD students

• Alfred Patterson, Exploring the motivating factors and impact of social media prayer sessions on Christian religious practices from the perspective of a developing country.

Accepting enquiries from prospective PhD students?

Yes.