PeopleOld

Adrian Clear

Adrian Clear is a Senior Research Fellow in Digital Living in the Department of Computing and Information Sciences at Northumbria University. Prior to Northumbria, he was a Senior Research Associate in Open Lab in Newcastle University, working on the EPSRC project, 'Pervasive Sensing for Collaborative Facilities Manangement'. Previously, he worked as a Senior RA in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University, where he is a member of the Socio-Digital Sustainability (SDS) research group. At Lancaster, Adrian was researcher co-investigator on the EPSRC-funded Research in the Wild project entitled Encouraging low carbon food shopping with ubicomp interventions. He has recently worked on the EPSRC-funded TEDDI project, Informing energy choices using ubiquitous computing and the ESRC-funded Sustainability project, Sustainable Carbon Counters. Adrian is interested in HCI and sustainability in the home, the workplace, and the city. His work covers various domains including thermal comfort, energy, and food, and involves qualitative and quantitative methods, sensor data analysis, infovis, and designing digital technologies for reshaping everyday practices in more sustainable ways. Prior to his work at Lancaster, Adrian completed his PhD, titled 'Engineering pervasive systems using interactive visualisation', at UCD Dublin before working as a postdoctoral researcher at Orange Labs, Grenoble in the area of sensor data fusion for home automation and sustainable living. Adrian's research interests include ubiquitous computing, HCI, context-awareness, sustainability, quantitative and qualitative study methods, and information visualisation.

Abigail Durrant

I am an Associate Professor at Northumbria School of Design, an interaction design practitioner and researcher, predominantly working in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). My design-led research explores how digital technologies may support personal identity management. In particular I am interested in the concept of ‘digital personhood’, and how digital interactions shape ideas of selfhood, wellbeing, social inclusion, and futures. Previous research explored the representation of Family through photos, following the transition to digital and the widespread adoption of smartphones and social media by younger generations. Projects delivered fascinating insights about how digital photography and online social networking has transformed traditional practices of assembling Family Photo Albums. Related research has considered digital photographic practice for expression in educational contexts, and for leisure, tourism, and cultural visiting. I have also worked in transnational research settings, to explore the media archiving practices of cultural institutions, in Rwanda and Slovenia. In these projects, the research focused on understanding digital support genocide memorialisation, and considering, not just personal identities in the digital ‘photowork’, but also national identities and international communities of practice. More recent research has considered how individuals manage personal identity online as they live through major life transitions, critically investigating how digital technologies may both enable and constrain expression and well-being, in the context of the lifespan and longer-term digital interactions. My research approach is practice-based, interdisciplinary, and participatory, using creative design inquiry to understand and communicate ideas and experiences. I was trained in Design (BA, MA (RCA)) and Social Psychology (PhD), and my recently completed Leverhulme fellowship has delivered methodological insight about the transformational value of design within multi-disciplinary research teams. I’m a passionate advocate of dissemination platforms supporting research through design, and have a special interest in the use of video to support inquiry, and in the use of visual argumentation in design research dissemination. I have significant demonstrators of impact in terms of funding, publications, and services to academic communities. I am Principal Investigator of EPSRC 'INTUIT: Interaction Design for Trusted Sharing of Personal Health Data to Live Well with HIV' project (EP/R033900/1), to start in October 2018. I am currently Co-Investigator (Co-I) of EPSRC 'Playing out with IOT' (EP/P025544/2). I recently completed the Leverhulme Fellowship (ECF-2012-642) in December 2017. I was previously Co-I at Newcastle University on an EPSRC 'Charting the Digital Lifespan (CDL)' project (EP/L00383X/1), and was previously Researcher Co-Investigator on EPSRC 'Scaling the Rural Enterprise' (EP/J000604/1). I was Co-Investigator on a project internally funded by Newcastle Institute of Creative Arts Practice (NICAP), and an Innovation Pilot for Creative Fuse North East, in collaboration with NICAP and partner organisations. I contribute to a number of academic communities, including SIGCHI Conferences and the Design Research Society (DRS) Conference. I am a Steering Committee member for the biennial RTD Conference series (and was previously General Chair of RTD 2015). I am also a member of the AHRC Peer Review College. I currently supervise 7 PhD students, and a number of undergraduate and postgraduate students in Design, Digital Media, and Human-Computer Interaction. I teach the following subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate level: Interaction Design, Creative Arts Practice, and Research Methods including Design Ethnography, and Using Film and Video for Design Research. I am Co-Lead (with colleague John Vines) of the 'Co-Create' research strand within the University's strategic IDEATE theme, aiming to deliver design-led research and innovation grounded in participatory methods. I have extensive commercial design research experience prior to working in academia, engaging in Healthcare, Consumer Goods, Telecommunications, Leisure and Entertainment, and UK Government. I work part time and have taken two periods of Maternity Leave in recent years, between July 2015 and April 2016, and June 2012 to February 2013. And it has been worth it to have my two occasionally entertaining children.

Andrew McNeill

Andrew McNeill is a Lecturer in Psychology at Northumbria University. He gained his PhD in social psychology at Queen’s University Belfast. Following this he worked on the INfluENCE project at Northumbria University, which explored the dissemination of H1N1-related information during the 2009-10 UK pandemic. He then worked on the ACANTO project, which developed a technology for older adults with a view to improving their social, psychological and physical wellbeing. Currently he has a particular interest in the role of technology in post-conflict societies.

Andrew Richardson

Gilbert Cockton

Professor Gilbert Cockton is an internationally renowned researcher with a career spanning over two decades. During that time he has received almost 220 invitations to present in 22 different countries, published over 220 papers, chapters, books, articles and edited proceedings (selection available from academia.edu), with almost 2500 citations (Google Scholar) and secured millions of pounds worth of funding for research and Knowledge Transfer Partnership projects. Gilbert has been active in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design research since 1983. With an international research reputation and almost 190 invited presentations in 19 countries, including 8 keynote addresses. He has a broad multidisciplinary background, with an MA/PGCE in History and Human Sciences (Education) and a PhD in Computer Science. His research spans from the theoretical foundations of design and evaluation approaches, to applied work with industry on usability, user experience, accessibility and applications of value-focused design and evaluation approaches. From 1997 to 2009, he was Research Chair in HCI at the University of Sunderland, where he secured funding for research and knowledge transfer projects and research infrastructure with a value exceeding £6M. This included a NESTA Fellowship from 2005-2008 on value-centred design. He has served in many roles within the international HCI community, including Vice-Chair of IFIP TC13 (2004 06), Chair of British HCI Group (2001-2004), Chair of ACM CHI 2003 and BCS HCI 2000 Conferences, and Secretary of IFIP WG2.7 on user interface engineering (1993-99). He is Editor Emeritus of the journal Interacting with Computers, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Usability Studies. Gilbert has published extensively since 1985 on usability, user experience and accessibility, grounded- and worth/value-centred design, and notations and architectures for interactive software. His key focus is on the balance between human-focused practice and creative and technical inventiveness in interaction design and evaluation. His research aims to develop design and evaluation approaches that expose the tacit knowledge underlying the many connections within the design process, e.g., between designs and their beneficiaries, design purpose and evaluation, and more complex connections between multiple aspects of designs and their interconnections.

James Nicholson

James is a Lecturer in the School of Computer and Information Sciences. James is interested in inclusive cybersecurity and leads the CyberGuardians research project. He is also interested in usable security, social engineering, and everyday surveillance. Previously, James was a senior researcher in PaCT Lab working on the Cybersecurity Across the Lifespan (cSALSA) project. The project explores how cyber-security is understood, and the attitudes and behaviours of people to cyber-security and risk. During his time in PaCT Lab, James also worked on Choice Architecture for Information Security (ChAISe), Digital Economy Research Centre (DERC), and the Horizon 2020 project CYBECO. Prior to PaCT Lab, James worked at Open Lab, Newcastle University on the TEDDI and SiDE projects. James’ work has focused on improving user authentication, both by repurposing existing graphical authentication systems and by evaluating novel ones. He is also interested in user privacy and how groups of users (children, parents, older adults) experience location tracking technologies, as well as how CCTV video can be crowdsourced to de-centralise the surveillance landscape. More recently, he has developed tools and methodologies for uncovering and understanding employees’ mental models of security threats with the aim of improving training programmes and/or organisational policies, as well as practical means for improving users’ protection against these security threats (e.g. phishing).

John Vines

I’m a designer by background, and most of my current research is located in the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) and participatory design. My research focuses on the study of how people experience, appropriate and use digital technologies in their everyday lives. I often take a research through design approach, which for me involves designing new digital prototypes, artefacts and “things” with citizens, and studying the creation and use of these prototypes to generate knowledge that is both valuable to designers and advances our understanding of social phenomena. I am specifically interested in how technology is interwoven with issues such as independence and agency in later life, could support informal and relational care for people of all ages, and might help scaffold “friendly” and “caring” communities. I also have experience and ongoing interests in human experience and technology design as it relates to self-care, trust, security and empathic communication. Generally, I’m intrigued by the ways in which digital technologies might support new interactions and engagements between people in relation to these issues, rather than be used to replace human contact (as is often the case). Along with the above, a large amount of my research examines the practical and ethical dimensions of conducting participatory design (and participatory research in general) with citizens, especially in sensitive contexts and with people with heightened vulnerabilities. Therefore I have an ongoing interest in understanding the methods and techniques used for involving people in design and research processes, and have been involved in a series of professional events and journal special issues unpicking the ethical encounters faced when conducting participatory and technology oriented research with participants.

Joyce Yee

Joyce Yee is an Associate Professor in Northumbria University’s School of Design. Joyce’s research focuses on the impact and value of design in social spaces and the epistemological and methodological implications of research through design. She is the co-founder of the Design for Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific network (DESIAP) with Yoko Akama, and established the biennial conference series Research Through Design (RTD) with Jayne Wallace. She co-authored a book titled Design Transitions looking at how design practices are changing and co-edited The Routledge Companion to Design Research.

Katie Brittain

Katie is Associate Professor of Ageing & Health in the Department of Nursing, Midwifery & Health. Katie is a social gerontologist and has an educational background in sociology. This has enabled her to pursue her research interests in the social impact that illness can have on the lives of older people. Before joining Northumbria University Katie worked at Newcastle University for sixteen years. During her time as a researcher she has researched and published widely around the impact of ill health on older people and carers. She held an EPSRC 'Discipline Hopping' award that explored 'ageing in place' and the impact of emerging technologies on the lives of older people. This has enabled her to work across disciplinary boundaries and focus on how aspects of the physical, social and technological environment pose challenges and opportunities for older people and their wider community.

Kay Rogage

Dr Kay Rogage is a Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow in Digital Living. Kay's research explores the synergy between building performance data (the building operation), occupant experience, and the building context. My research examines disparate, fragmented data sets such as BIM data and sensor data for developing knowledge to support both the operation of buildings and occupant well-being. My work involves using machine learning techniques to explore feature selection and pattern matching across data to improve data retrieval and the interoperability of building models. Prior to joining Northumbria, Kay worked in both industry and academia developing software solutions for the construction industry at the NBS (National Building Specifications), the commercial arm of the RIBA, and at Newcastle University as a Research Associate. Kay has also worked at a number of new digital media organisations such as TH_NK, developing solutions for a range of digital formats.

Lynne Coventry

Lynne Coventry is the Director of PaCT Lab (Psychology and Communication Technology) at the University of Northumbria. Lynne is best known for her work on usable security, particularly biometrics. Her research interests are varied and she is currently involved in research exploring the role of communication technology in the lives of older adults to facilitate mobility and inclusion, the role of trust in student’s use of online information, the usability of medical products and the design of usable security. She is an applied researcher who enjoys working in multidisciplinary teams to solve real problems. She is keen to explore new ways of integrating psychology into design and technology development processes. She has a multidisciplinary background with a BSC in Psychology and Computing Science, an MSc in Software Engineering and a PhD in Human Computer Interaction. While her early career was spent as a research fellow and lecturer at Stirling University, Heriot Watt and Dundee university, the majority of her career has been as a researcher within Industry (both computing and medical products) working to incorporate understanding of people, their use and acceptance of technology into the requirements and design process. Lynne is a founding member of the Scottish Usability Professional Association and previous vice president. Lynne is a founding member of STEPS, and current Editor of Interfaces (A British Computer Society Magazine) and a reviewer for a number of international conferences and journals.

Lars Holmqvist

Lars Erik Holmquist is Professor of Innovation at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. He is an internationally leading researcher in human computer interaction, interaction design and ubiquitous computing. He has published over 100 articles in fields such as HCI, design methods, mobile applications and ubiquitous computing, which have been cited more than 3500 times. His work has been presented at major scientific conferences including CHI, SIGGRAPH, UIST, UbiComp, Mobile HCI, InfoVis and ECSCW. His first book, Grounded Innovation: Strategies for Creating Digital Products, was published by Morgan Kaufman in 2012, and provides a practical guide to the design-driven innovation process, with many examples drawn from his own research and elsewhere. He was Principal Scientist at Yahoo Labs in Sunnyvale, where he did research in areas such as location-based services, interactive television and augmented reality. Other appointments include Full Professor at Södertörn University, Lab Leader at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science, and co-founder and Research Leader of the Mobile Life Centre in Kista, Sweden. He has led a number of major research projects, from agencies including the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, The Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems, several large European Union projects, and two collaborative grants with Stanford from the Wallenberg Global Learning Network. He has served on technical program committees, including UbiComp, CHI, UIST, NordiCHI, SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia and Mobile HCI, and is an associate editor for two journals in ubicomp and robotics. He has supervised two Ph.D. students to completion and served on Ph.D. thesis committees in Sweden and Denmark. He was awarded an Individual Grant for the Advancement of Young Research Leaders (INGVAR) from the Foundation for Strategic Research, one of the most prestigious personal grants for researchers in Sweden. 

Lesley McIntyre

Lesley joined the School of the Built Environment in August 2016 as a Senior Lecturer in Architecture. Her main teaching responsibilities include design studio across the undergraduate years and module tutor for Design and Communications module. She also contributes to the Technology and Environmental Applications module and supports students at a Masters and PhD Level. Prior to joining Northumbria, Lesley was a Research Fellow at the University of Dundee and was Co-Investigator and Architectural lead on the RCUK funded BESiDE Research Project (EP/K037293/1 - BESiDE: The Built Environment for Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy). Working within a multidisciplinary team (spanning Architecture, Computing, Medicine and Design), this project investigated the impact of the built environment of care homes on older peoples’ wellbeing, mobility and social connectivity. Throughout Lesley’s practice and research portfolio she has been motivated to develop a greater understanding of the interactions between people and their built environments. Her PhD, (awarded in 2012) explored the way-finding experiences of people with a range of visual impairment in public buildings. She has focused on areas such as wellbeing, universal design and accessibility, human building-interaction, physical mobility, way-finding, ageing and ubiquitous technologies. Her research is driven by working with the range of stakeholders (ranging from the residents and staff of care homes, to architects and policy makers) and in refining research methods through working with building users. Lesley is biographer of Selwyn Goldsmith and was awarded a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Research Trust Award to write the monograph, ‘Selwyn Goldsmith (1932-2011) and the Architectural Model of Disability: A Retrospective of the Man and the Model’. She currently holds his archive and is the author of the entry of Selwyn Goldsmith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Lesley has also held a Martin Jones Scholarship (from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland) and a RIBA Research Trust Award (from the Royal Institute of British Architects). Lesley has undertaken invitations to speak at an international level at Rochester Institute of Technologies and at the University at Buffalo (NYC). She has been awarded ‘Best Papers’ from the Building Research Establishment (BRE) at Eco-build (the world’s biggest sustainable construction show) and from Sheffield Hallam’s Design 4 Health Conference. She has also contributed research to computing conferences including CHI and ASSETS (premier Human-Computer Interaction conferences). Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, her work has been exhibited as part of the 2008 Shanghai Biennale and won a Gold Award.

Elizabeth Sillence

Liz is an Associate Professor within the Department of Psychology teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. She is a member of the PACT (Psychology and Communication Technologies) Lab – part of the Centre for Cognition and Communication. Her research interests are focussed on trust and online interactions particularly within an e-health context. Liz is currently exploring trust exchanges within online health communities and examining the influence of online patient experience on behaviour and decision making. Liz has also written on ethical issues in mobile human-computer-interaction and has a keen interest in qualitative methodologies. She has attracted (as Col) large research council grants both in the UK and jointly with colleagues in the USA. She has published over 20 articles on trust, privacy and online communication and regularly presents her work at national and international conference. She has been a guest editor for the journal of Interacting with Computers and the International Journal of Human Computer Studies.

Mersha Aftab

My interest is in the role design plays in the strategic innovation process in multinational industries. My ambition is to fit design at the heart of organisations, especially the ones that want to be innovative.

Mark Blythe

Mark is a design ethnographer working in the field of Human Computer Interaction. His research is concerned with the digital revolution we are stumbling and tumbling through and how this changes the ways we live, work, make art and grow old. He likes to write about himself in the third person, like Caesar.

Dr Marta E. Cecchinato

I am a Lecturer in the Computer and Information Science Department at Northumbria University, where I work in the area of Human-Computer Interaction alongside other researchers from nor.sc and NORTHLab. My background is in Psychology (BSc, MSc) and I have worked in Computer Science departments as well as in multi-disciplinary labs across Europe, including HTLab (Human Technology Lab) with Luciano Gamberini at University of Padua (Italy), the Ubiquitous Interaction group, with Giulio Jacucci and Eve Hoggan (now at Aahrus University) at the University of Helsinki and at HIIT (Helsinki Institute for Information Technology), the Human Experience and Design group with Abigail Sellen and Milad Shokouhi at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, and more recently the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLiC), where I’ve carried out my PhD work under the supervision of Prof Anna Cox and Dr Jon Bird (City University, London). I have collaborated on and led various projects, including the FP7 EU funded CEEDs project, EPSRC Digital Epiphanies project, EPSRC Balance Network LifeSwap project, the EPSRC Balance Network Microboundaries project, and more recently the UCL Grand Challenge iWARDs project. My research focuses on communication technologies across multiple devices (desktop computers/laptops, smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches) and how the use of these device ecologies affects our “work-life balance”. Taking a pragmatic approach, I look at how to support users in managing their time, attention and resources by understanding the issues they encounter and providing strategies and interventions around work-home boundary management. I have published in the top HCI venues, including CHI (with a Best Paper award in 2016), MobileHCI, and Ubicomp and my work has been featured in the New Scientist, The Conversation and The Psychologist.

Nick Dalton

I am a Computer scientist with an interest in human computer interaction particularly through making. I have a background working with architects analyzing large networks for a number of social outcomes. I am very interested in the interaction between Computer interaction and architecture. My projects have included intelligent buildings, a smart wineshop and a smart carpet. I have done work looking at public displays embedded in space and I’m currently looking at interacting with computers while using a standing desk. I am also passionate about widening participation in human computer interaction and interaction design to those with physical and cognitive impairments. I have supervised a number of students off the neuro-typical spectrum.

Pam Briggs

I hold a Chair in Applied Psychology at Northumbria University and am a Visiting Professor at Newcastle University. My work primarily addresses issues of identity, trust and security in new social media, seeking answers to three main questions: Why and when do we feel secure in disclosing sensitive identity information about ourselves? What makes us trust an electronic message? How and when do we seek to protect our privacy? In the last five years, I’ve secured over £2m in research funding, have published over forty articles on human perceptions of trust, privacy and security in computer-mediated communication and have developed, with colleagues, a new model of health advice-seeking online. I’m one of the founder members of the UK's Research Institute in the Science of Cybersecurity, funded by GCHQ in association with RCUK's Global Uncertainty Programme and my most recent research awards address both usable and inclusive privacy and security. My latest projects (see projects page) concern cybersecurity across the lifespan (cSALSA), the human side of cyber and cloud crime (CRITICAL) and attitudes and decision-making behaviours around cyberinsurance (CYBECO). I’m also a co-investigator on the Digital Economy Research Centre (DERC) where I’ve been exploring ways to democratise context-relevant data collection and analysis and explore the design of digital platforms for social action.

Rachel Clarke

Rachel is an interdisciplinary design researcher specialising in the politics of participatory and co-design practice in cross-cultural development of digital technology to support gender equality. As part of her fellowship she is working on cross-cultural understandings of participation, social innovation and design practice to support awareness of the consequences of harmful global material flows and interactions associated with technology use. She received her PhD at Culture Lab, Newcastle University in 2015 focusing on artful long-term interaction design with an international women’s centre in the UK. Working with volunteers and women’s agencies she co-created counter-narratives for the design of future digital services with third-sector and cultural heritage organisations. More recently she has worked as a post-doctoral researcher in a number of cross-disciplinary teams designing for alternative grass-roots approaches to re-envision future plans for ‘Smart Cities’. This has included the creation and evaluation of critical kits for supporting immigrant women’s heritage, participatory arts reflection, and discursive action on poverty and trust in communities of practice experiencing marginalisation and stigma.

Steve Gibson

Steve Gibson is an interactive media artist, interface designer, electronic musician, and media curator with a diverse academic background, and an on-going practice that spans many disciplines. He is primarily interested in transdisciplinary collaborations between art, design and computing, and has concentrated his research work on tactile and physical interfaces and applications that enable a more healthy relationship with technology. His current research also explores the formal, theoretical and practical implications of Live and Real-time Visuals. He was formerly Senior Lecturer and Director of the Multimedia Program at Karlstad University in Sweden, and Associate Professor of Digital Media at University of Victoria, Canada. Steve has also had immediately publically facing roles as Curator and Director for the Media Art event Interactive Futures from 2002-07, and as Co-owner and Creative Director of a 10-person media company in Victoria, Canada, Limbic Media Corporation (2007-14). Steve Gibson has an active practice that fuses immersive art, audio-visual performance and DIY design. Over the past fifteen years he has created several prominent works, either as the primary artist or as a collaborator in a team. These have resulted in over fifty performances or exhibitions over the past fifteen years. Over the course of his twenty-five year career he has presented at many world-leading venues including Ars Electronica, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Banff Centre for the Arts, Digital Art Weeks, the European Media Arts Festival, ISEA, and Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich. Over the past fifteen years he has worked as PI and CI on numerous research grants. His publishing career is also very active, with papers appearing in high profile books, journals and volumes including Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Springer, St. Martin’s Press, MIT Press, New World Perspectives, Urra Apogeo, and Passagen Verlag. Personal Website: http://www.telebody.ws Real-time Visuals AHRC Network: http://www.realtimevisuals.org/ Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/room101studio Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/steve-gibson-101 https://soundcloud.com/dj-lycius Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/dj-nord/

Chris Elsden

I’m an interaction design researcher who recently joined the IDEATE group in the School of Design to work on the Ox-Chain project. With a background in sociology, my work employs a wide range of qualitative methods and peculative design research to open up new and alternative design spaces for future relationships with data and technology. My thesis work at Open Lab, Newcastle University, concerned fieldwork about the experiences of living a ‘data-driven life’, in particular, how burgeoning digital traces can mediate remembering.

Dawn Branley-Bell

Dawn is a chartered Psychologist specialising in cyberpsychology. She is an elected member of the British Psychological Society (BPS) Cyberpsychology Section, and editorial member for the Cyberpsychology Bulletin. Dawn’s research interests include online communication around extreme behaviours (e.g., self-harm, eating disorders, suicidal ideation), behaviour change, cybersecurity, and the application of ‘technology for good’. Dawn was previously awarded an RCUK International Fellowship at the Library of Congress (LoC), Washington D.C as the first external researcher to access the LoC’s Twitter archive. She collaborates on a wide range of multidisciplinary, international projects, and has managed major projects funded by the US Military of Defence (STEPPS), EU Horizon 2020 (CYBECO & PANACEA Research) and Yorkshire Cancer Research. Dawn is a mixed-methods researcher, and holds a Behaviour Change Techniques Taxonomy Certificate for coding competence of complex behaviour change interventions from University College London (UCL).

Danny Harrison

Jamie Mahoney

Kiel Long

I joined IDEATE shortly after it formed in March 2017 to continue my work as a researcher on two projects; LiDA: Loneliness In the Digital Age, and CuRAtOR: Challenging online feaR And OtheRing . My background is diverse ranging from music, Interactive and New Media, physical computing, bots... My PhD from Lancaster University is titled: "Understanding, Measuring, and, Invoking Mindfulness and Mindlessness During Human-Computer Interactions"; and proposes the framing of human-computer interaction and interface design through a lens of Mindfulness and Mindlessness as a means of better understanding and designing for the distinct qualities each holds.

Kerry McKellar

Kerry is a research associate currently working on Understanding the relationship between digital accumulation behaviours and GDPR. Kerry is interested in online risky behaviour, health behaviours, behaviour change, teenage risky behaviour online and cybersecurity. Kerry obtained a BA (Hons) Psychology from Northumbria University in 2013, and went on to complete an MRes in Psychology in 2014. Kerry undertook a PhD in PaCT lab completed in 2017 entitled “Developing a brief online sexual health intervention programme for low SES female teenagers.” This PhD explored teenagers’ beliefs, knowledge and attitudes towards sexual health and then inform a sexual health intervention program aimed at reducing the amount of unplanned pregnancies and STIs in the teenage population.

Lisa Thomas

I am a psychologist working in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). I am a Senior Lecturer in the Psychology Department at Northumbria University, based in the Psychology and Communication Technology (PaCT) Lab, and Visiting Associate at Newcastle University. Previously, I was the Senior Researcher for three successive multidisciplinary EPSRC projects: IMPRINTS, ReelLives and the DERC (Digital Economy Research Centre). IMPRINTS assessed the UK publics' intentions to engage with identity management technology of the future. ReelLives explored the ways in which individuals could take ownership of their digital identity. DERC aimed to improve digital provisions for the volunteering community. I have a keen interest in the role of technology in life transitions, and I am currently researching the impact of technology use in motherhood; in particular, work-life balance for new parents.

Santosh Vijaykumar

Santosh is a health and risk communication scientist with research interests at the intersection of public health, behavioural science and new media technologies. Specifically, he studies mobile and social media interventions for addressing global health challenges with a focus on tropical and infectious diseases. Santosh’s research analyses and evaluates the effects of both, bespoke innovations (like crowdsourced surveillance applications) as well as generic platforms (like Twitter and Facebook) on individuals, communities and health systems during infectious disease outbreaks. The research approach involves mixed methodologies, trans-disciplinary conceptualization and collaborations with policymakers, activists and the industry. His work, spanning the US, Singapore, Sri Lanka and India, has been published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management and Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour among others.

Tommy Dylan

I’m a digital product designer/creative technologist and researcher. My design approach has stemmed from a fascination with invention and working hands-on with both digital and craft materials – I love to tinker and build. As the internet of things develops around us I have come to see the value of this hands-on approach when looking to explore and understand the values we might want from everyday digital objects.

Tom Feltwell

Tom joined Northumbria University in February 2016, as a research assistant on the CuRAtOR: Challenging online feaR And OtheRing project, which aims to explore how new interactive digital experiences might be designed to counteract the problematic outcomes of Othering and fearful representations. Having completed an undergraduate degree in Games Computing at University of Lincoln, Tom started working as a research assistant on the CuRAtOR project at the University of Lincoln in 2014. He moved to Northumbria University in February 2016 to join Professor Shaun Lawson in the newly formed Northumbria Social Computing Lab (NorSC Lab). He is currently finalising a MSc by Research at University of Lincoln on the subject of user-centred design of game analytics visualisations. His research focuses on the societal and cultural impact of digital and social media technologies, visualisations and mapping of data, and the appropriation and usage of technology for political and activist purposes.

Anne Spaa

Since October 2017, I am a Post Graduate Research student at Northumbria University. Being particularly curious about think tanks and how these organisations work in order to influence public policy, my PhD focusses on researching ways how design research might learn from think tanks, and how think tanks might benefit from design Research. My supervisors are John Vines and Abigail Durrant. A common theme in the projects I’ve done in the past is the drive to investigate the impact of technology on society. I hold a Master and Bachelor in Industrial Design from the TU/e, during which I conducted my master graduation project at the Everyday Design Studio of Ron Wakkary (Vancouver, CA) as an Irvin K Barber scholar and I have been an intern at Muzus (The Hague, NL) - a service design studio for 'context mapping'. Since 2014, I have joined several organisations that aim to get the work of design researchers and creative technologist to a wider audience. For that, I have been part of the production and management teams of several conferences and exhibitions in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Berlin and Helsinki. Currently, since February 2018, I am the assistant to the editors-in-chief of ACM Interactions.

Belen Pena

Belén is a PhD student in the Design School at Northumbria University, where she is supervised by John Vines and Lars Erik Holmquist. Her research is about participatory design, older adults and financial services. Before that, Belén was an interaction designer for over 10 years, helping companies to build software that makes sense to the people who use it. She spent 5 of those 10 years working on free and open source software at Intel. She helped create the Open Source Design group, and has contributed to projects like OpenEmbedded, Patchwork and SecureDrop.

Dmitry Dereshev

Dmitry studies Smart Personal Assistants (Alexa, Google), their embodiments (Echo, Google Home), and existing and upcoming robots for homes (Pepper, Jibo, Buddy).

Enrique Encinas

Henry Collingham

A Design-Led Enquiry into Parametric Product Design for Dementia Care (Provisional Thesis Title)

Kiersten Hay

Kiersten is an HCI PhD candidate within the Design School at Northumbria University investigating the construction and management of digital identity by women living with HIV in the UK. She is currently interested in the use of design research methods to reveal information often distorted due to the social requirements of human communication. Previously, Kiersten has received a Master of Arts degree with distinction from the University of Edinburgh/Edinburgh College of Arts in Design Informatics and a Bachelor of Design with honours from Ryerson University in Fashion Communications. As an interdisciplinary designer, her previous design experience includes both digital and print magazines, digital marketing, craft, and new media.

Megan Doherty

Marcus Walton

Simran Chopra

Selina Sutton

I have a background in both speech sciences and human-computer interaction. My research agenda is to bring the worlds of sociophonetics (the study of the social factors that affect speech) and human-computer interaction closer together for both their benefit. I am a PhD student (currently in my 2nd year) in the Northumbria Social Computing Research Group. My thesis is an account of investigating research methods in the study of speech in public video sharing (e.g. YouTube). I am also interested in all things technology and language related. Other current interests include i) the design, and change in use and meaning of emoji, ii) how our speech changes when interacting with voice user interfaces such as Amazon's Alexa and Siri, and iii) how sociophonetic knowledge can be married with participatory design methods to design the voices used in these devices - amongst other things!

Lea Frentzel-Beyme

Lea studies Applied Cognition and Media Science at University of Duisburg-Essen. The study programme focuses specifically upon HCI. She is currently working on her Master of Science with focus on social psychology. Momentary, Lea absolves an three month internship at NorSC lab. She conducts research in context of fake news, news credibility and filter bubbles - especially to generate approaches who could call attention to the everyday filter bubble we live in and furthermore, support to burst these.

Lisa Prepens

I study Applied Cognitive and Media Science at University Duisburg-Essen. The course consists oft two major disciplines that are psychology and computer science as well as business economics. My bachelor thesis was about information processing in the context of sustainable consumer behavior. Currently I am doing a three month internship at Northumbria University. I do research on news reception on the internet, in particular on selective exposure behavior as well as filter bubbles and approaches to burst them.