St Andrews HCI Research Group

Stavroula is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, Founding Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Minorities Research and editor of the interdisciplinary book series Routledge Advances in Minority Studies. She works on minority politics, displacement, governance, and the Cold War. She is the author of “The Grecanici of Southern Italy: Governance, Violence, and Minority Politics” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) and “Lurking Cold War: Life Through Historical Communion” (Berghahn 2025). Lurking Cold War explores the entangled registers of the Cold War that continue to stalk the social landscape in Italy and Greece. Critiquing the connections between global categories and individual experiences, Lurking foregrounds Cold War resonances through materiality, imagination, speculation and affect, in literature, bureaucracy and in the family. A theory of methexi illustrates how people and history are brought into communion, blurring the boundaries between known and unknown, reality and imagination, and form and interpretation. The result is an articulation of history that matters in a way that matters.

Dr Mark Zarb is an Associate Professor based within the School of Computing, Engineering and Technology at RGU

His main research focus is within computing education, having led international working groups on transitions into higher education in 2018 and post-pandemic educational landscapes in 2021 and 2022.

He received his PhD (2014, University of Dundee) for work exploring the role of verbal communication styles in pair programming. His various roles and experiences allow him a wide and international perspective on computing education.

Tom Metcalfe is an interdisciplinary designer and researcher whose work begins with social purpose, and evolves through the creation of meticulously considered forms, intuitive yet surprising interaction design, and an open, conversational quality which invites human and more-than-human connection. He works across multiple mediums and materials creating Performative Artefacts which often utilise technology in subtle ways to enhance the texture, capacity and magical animism of object-based interaction. Metcalfe’s practice is situated in Dundee and Fife, Scotland. He founded his own studio in 2014. His current major work is an exploration into the connections and opportunities in place, design and human-computer interaction – particularly tangibles and connected objects. Place is the foundation of regenerative design, and our understanding of place identity, attachment and affordances will play a crucial role in creating a more ethical, equitable and sustainable future.