Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow. I am a Research Fellow in Digital Living. An active member of Northumbria’s BIM Academy Team, my work spans across the disciplines of computer science and the built environment with a focus on enabling the interoperability of building models and tools to overcome the technical barriers around data exchange in the built environment. My work also focuses on the automatic augmentation of Building Information Model (BIM) data using Machine Learning techniques.
My previous roles have included Research Associate at Newcastle University and for Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Enterprises developing a number of software products for the National Building Specification (NBS). I have also worked in a number of new digital media organisations such as TH_NK developing solutions for a range of digital formats. As a lecturer at Northumbria’s Computer Information Sciences Department, I apply my research and knowledge to both undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes.
I am Professor of Digital Living in the School of Computer and Information Science. I study Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and the design of interactive computational technologies. I'm particularly interested in design research methods and the ways in which technology design can be centred on rich understanding of user experiences, cultures and contexts.
I have previously held positions as Senior Lecturer of Experience-Centred Design and then Reader in Cultural Computing at Newcastle University, Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction in the Mixed Reality Lab and School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, and as a post-doc in the Socio-Digital Systems group at Microsoft Research Cambridge. My background is in Psychology (BSc) and Ergonomics (MSc) with a PhD in Computer Science. Over the years my work has been heavily influenced by the sociologists, philosophers and designers that I've collaborated with and consequently I take a design-led, social science orientation to understanding human experience and its application to the design of digital technologies. Accordingly, and although trained as an experimental scientist, my research is increasingly based on qualitative methods and design-research practices.