People

Abi Roper is a Research Fellow. She is a speech and language therapist and researcher passionate about technology access within speech & language therapy and communication. Recent work includes the role of researcher co-investigator on the INCA project investigating how to empower people with aphasia to create, curate and access digital content through innovative technologies.

Alex Taylor is a Reader in Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh. His research ranges from studies of technology in everyday life to speculative design interventions. He draws on feminist technoscience to ask questions about the roles human-machine composites play in forms of knowing and being, and their possibilities for fundamental transformations in society.

Andrew MacFarlane is a Reader in Information Retrieval at HCID. His research interests in information retrieval or search technologies and HCI (interactive information retrieval systems), mostly focusing on cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia and Aphasia.

Axel Niklasson is a PhD candidate at HCID. His research is interested in the Future of Work, and particularly in how AI is situated in teamwork and related technology. Prior to academic work, Axel spent a 20-year international career in telecom, media and software engineering. He earned his MSc from Lund University, Sweden.

Belén Barros Pena has been an interaction designer and design researcher in the software industry since 2007. After obtaining her PhD in 2021, she is now a Lecturer at HCID. As a researcher, she specialises in financial technologies, and in engaging marginalised populations through participatory design practices.

Ernesto Priego is a Senior Lecturer in HCID. He co-founded and co-edits The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship. His research interests include co-design and participatory design practices involving visual storytelling, open access publishing, ethics and material culture in the digital age/age of AI, digital humanities and design justice.

Helena Lyhme is a PhD student at HCID. Her research is about eliciting the expertise of autistic people to co-design new financial technologies in alignment with neurodivergent needs and preferences. Helena has previous experience developing digital products in the IT industry. Her academic background is in social anthropology and science and technology studies (STS).

Inemesit Emmanuel is a User Experience Researcher currently working with the HCID Interaction Lab, focusing on redesigning and enhancing the university course pages through user testing and analysis. Inemesit has also worked on a variety of projects, including serving as a co-design facilitator for the Longitude Prize on Dementia, where she collaborated with individuals living with dementia and caregivers to create user-centered solutions. Her experience spans across user research, co-design, and usability testing, bringing a well-rounded skill set to her current work at the Interaction Lab

Larisa Blazic is a PhD student at HCID. Her current research explores how collaborative and cooperative funding platforms may be co-designed and developed that enable communities to manage resources for collective benefit in fair, inclusive, sustainable and accountable ways.

Linda Berube is a doctoral researcher at HCID. Her AHRC CDP-funded research, in partnership with the British Library, focuses on digital ecosystems, especially as they are formed around the creation, production, and consumption of digital comics. Prior to this research, she has been involved in the design and analysis of web-based user services and collections.

Monica Visani Scozzi has recently joined HCID as a PhD student. Her research focuses on how to support users interacting with conversational Generative AIs, minimising potential harms and maximising benefits. Monica has previously worked in the IT industry implementing and deploying solutions, with a passion for data and information, helping others get the most out of systems.

Richard is Principal Design Manager for Microsoft Research in their lab in Cambridge, UK. He focuses on the issues and opportunities raised by artificial intelligence for people. He works on Project Alexandria, a research project and AI system for making knowledge useful at work. Richard is the author of “The Future of Looking Back”, a book which focuses on new digital legacies and their potential impact on memory and reminiscing. He's honorary Professor of Design at the University of Dundee, holds an Honorary Doctorate from City University, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and holder of 44 patents in a broad range of technology areas.

Sara Heitlinger is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of HCID. She leads the More-than-Human Sustainable and Inclusive Smart Cities (MoSaIC) project. Her research at the intersections of urban sustainability, computation, and participatory design draws on methods from the arts and humanities to find ways for co-designing more just and inclusive smart cities.

Simran Chopra is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the MoSaIC project. She previously worked as a Research Associate in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh exploring Value Exchange in communities. After a disciplinary background in design and industrial experience in India, in Graphic, UX and Design research she embarked on her PhD journey at Northumbria University. Her PhD was a transdisciplinary approach to Sustainable HCI focusing on practices of Participatory Visioning in grassroots communities. Her prior work has focused on sustainability, critical design, and discourse of technology use in everyday life through art, design, and social action.

Stephanie Wilson is Professor of Human-Computer Interaction and Co-Director of HCID. She specialises in co-design and UX research for inclusion and better futures with digital technology. Stephanie is joint lead of the new EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Diversity in Data Visualization, and is on the management board for the new Institute for Creativity and AI at City St George’s.

Stephann Makri is former Co-Director of the Centre for HCI Design and self-proclaimed ‘prince of serendip’ - based on his research interest in supporting serendipity in Human-Information Interaction. His research involves understanding how people interact with information and using this understanding to inform the design of digital information environments to create experiences that are engaging, enriching, exciting and fulfilling. His research aims to empower people to interact with information in ways that enhance their autonomy in thinking and decision-making, minimise and mitigate against information harms (e.g. overwhelm, manipulation etc.) and stimulate engagement, curiosity, serendipity and creativity.

Stuart Scott is a commercially experienced Design Researcher and Interaction Designer. Acting as Manager / Lead Practitioner at City Interaction Lab he has run commercial UX activities on behalf of HCID since 2013. Stuart has recently begun exploring new design opportunities offered by the Immersive Sector (XR, AR, MR, VR).

Sylwia Frankowska-Takhari is an inclusive design research practitioner and accessibility expert. She is passionate about making a difference for the end users and helping UX teams build innovative and accessible products. Her research incorporates inclusive participatory methods and explores how technology can be used to increase independence and support the well-being of people with disabilities.

Tom Stead holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in Design and has extensive experience of product design, design engineering and interaction design in both industry and academia. His research interests include sensors and the HCI implications of the deployment and use of digital twins, and physical and spatial computing.

Tracey Booth has been designing and evaluating user-facing applications and interfaces for over two decades. As a Lecturer on the MSc in HCID, she is helping to instil a user-centred ethos into new generations of UX researchers and designers. Her main research interests lie in inclusive approaches to making and development, and the design of novel and inclusive technologies, with emphasis on a positive user experience.

Ulfa works as an interaction designer and researcher in HCI. She is currently working on the Dara project, investigating inclusive data visualisation for human-centred decision making. Her research interests are Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, and Creative Computing. Her PhD is about interaction design on movement-based applications using Pose Estimation. Ulfa has previously worked in roles as a User Experience Researcher, Interaction Designer and Associate Lecturer. She taught Computational Inequalities and Personalisation & Machine Learning at the Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts, London; and supported the Graphical User Interface module as a Teaching Fellow at Queen Mary, University of London.