Dr Jason Jacques (St Andrews) and Dr Kristin Williams (Emory) have been awarded the Emory – St Andrews Collaborative Research Grant for their project ‘Considering Household Division of Labor when Engaging Civic Participation in Environmental Stewardship’

 

 

Climate change and environmental policy research often focuses on planetary scale changes, that are challenging for individuals to contextualise in their own environment. The project focuses on exploring and understanding how individuals engage with environmental stewardship on a hyper-local level: how do individual households understand their environment and are they able to draw connections between their actions, the activities in their community, and the environment around them?

In answering these questions, the project will connect households and communities together, combining this network of citizen scientists and environmental sensors, to enhance their understanding through bespoke visualisations customised for these communities.

“It great that the St Andrews is willing to take the initiative to support international collaboration on big questions, including environmental policy and sustainability. Connecting with Kristin, and others at Emory, for this project has offered unique opportunities to build capabilities and contrast the unique needs of communities on both sides of the Atlantic.” 

See more information about the Global Partnerships at St Andrews.

Our school of Computer Science are looking to recruit two people to join us in this unique and captivating place. Seven centuries of history link the students with the town, leading to the ancient and yet modern institution where you will be at the forefront of topics in CS e.g Human Computer Interaction. https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk

1. Lecturer advertisement  
2. Associate Lecturer advertisement 

As noted in the School’s blog post on this, the school is particularly interested in recruiting someone with an interest in HCI into one of these posts.

The closing date is 25 October 2019

[1] The School of Computer Science is looking to recruit a lecturer as part of a large on-going expansion of our academic staff. We are especially, but not exclusively, interested in those working in Human Computer Interaction.    

We wish to appoint a Lecturer to join our vibrant teaching and research community that is ranked amongst the top venues for Computer Science education and research worldwide.  The successful candidate will be expected to have a range of interests, to be active in research publication that strengthens or complements those in the School and to be capable of teaching the subject to undergraduate and taught postgraduate students who come to us with a wide range of backgrounds.    

Candidates should hold a PhD in a cognate discipline. Excellent teaching skills and an interest in promoting knowledge exchange are essential.  You should also have some familiarity with grant seeking processes in relation to research councils and other sources.  The Lecturer comes with an academic promotion track to Senior Lecturer, Reader, Professor.

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Professor Aaron Quigley from SACHI and Professor Yoshifumi Kitamura (Tohoku University, Japan) are the general co-chairs for the ACM CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Yokohama in 2021.  CHI is hosted by the ACM SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference for the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). This flagship conference is generally considered the most prestigious in the field of HCI and attracts thousands of international attendees annually.

 

CHI provides a place where researchers and practitioners can gather from across the world to discuss the latest HCI topics. It has been held since 1982 and this is only the second time CHI will be held in Asia.

Congratulations to Hui-Shyong Yeo, who has been selected as both an ACM SIGCHI communication ambassador and to represent SIGCHI at the ACM 50 Years of the A.M. Turing Award Celebration.
Yeo is a 2nd year PhD student and is particularly interested in exploring and developing novel interaction techniques. Since joining us in SACHI, he has had work accepted at ACM CHI 2016 and CHI 2017, ACM MobileHCI 2016 and 2017 and ACM UIST 2016. His work has featured at Google I/O 2016, locally on STV news and he gave a talk at Google UK in 2016 about his research.  His work has also featured in the media including in Gizmodo, TheVerge, Engadget and TechCrunch., see his personal website for more details. MORE

<!–Speaker: Andrew Manches, University of Edinburgh
Date/Time: 2-3pm November 24, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
Most of us might agree that ‘hands-on learning’ is good for children in the early years. But why? Is it simply more fun and sociable, or are there any more direct cognitive benefits? And what determines definitions of ‘hands-on’? Can we include iPads? This talk will draw upon an ESRC-funded project to examine the educational implications of recent theoretical arguments about the embodied nature of cognition. Video data from the project will be used to illustrate the methodological significance of the way children gesture when describing mathematical concepts and evaluate a hypothesis that numerical development is grounded upon two particular embodied metaphors. If correct, this presents a serious challenge to traditional approaches to the types of learning materials we offer children. The talk then demonstrates two embodied technologies to consider the potential of new forms of digital interaction to further our understanding of embodied cognition as well as support early learning.
Bio:
Dr Andrew Manches is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the School of Education and leads the Children and Technology group at the University of Edinburgh. He has 20 years experience working with children, first as a teacher, then as an academic. His recent research, funded by an ESRC Future Research Leader grant, focuses on the role of interaction in thinking, and the implications this has for early learning and new forms of technology. When not being an academic, Andrew is a parent of two young children and directs an early learning technology start-up that was awarded a SMART grant this year to build an early years maths tangible technology.
This seminar is part of our ongoing series from researchers in HCI. See here for our current schedule.

We are pleased to announce that Microsoft Research and Microsoft have selected our Academic Research Request Proposal for the “Intelligent Canvas for Data Analysis and Exploration” as one of ten to award. MORE

This week we welcomed another new face to SACHI. David Morrison is a computer programmer, with a strong industry background, originally in the games industry but more recently mobile app development. David was also a technology fellow on the Code for Europe project in 2014.

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Congratulations to Professor Aaron Quigley who had been appointed the office holder for the ACM SIGCHI Adjunct Chair for Specialized Conferences by the ACM SIGCHI President Loren Terveen.
Aaron will take over from Philippe Palanque later this month and is looking forward to working with the ACM SIGCHI Executive Committee, Conference Management Committee and ACM staff over the next three years.
 

SACHI and the School of Computer Science in the University of St Andrews are delighted to welcome Dr Uta Hinrichs as a new lecturer. Uta has been a postdoctoral research fellow with SACHI since 2012 and she now co-leads SACHI along with her colleagues. During her time as a post-doc, Uta served on the program committee for CHI 2015 and she was the ACM ITS 2013 and ACM UIST 2013 volunteer co-chair. MORE

<!–Speaker: Gavin Doherty, Trinity College Dublin
Date/Time: 2-3pm June 16, 2015
Location: CS1.33a, University of St Andrews–>
Abstract:
Mental illness is one of the greatest social and economic challenges facing our society.
The talk will consider at some of the different ways in which technology (and HCI research) can help, with a particular focus on the problem of engagement. Taking examples from a series of projects to develop novel technologies for use in the mental health space, we will see some of the unique issues and challenges which come from working in this domain, and the steps which can be taken to address them. The SilverCloud platform, designed to deliver range of engaging and effective clinician-supported mental health interventions, will be used as a specific example to discuss the topics of evaluation and dissemination. Development of a suite of programmes and a number of partnerships based on the platform have enabled the delivery of supported online interventions to tens of thousands of patients in a range of public and private healthcare services worldwide.
Bio:
Dr. Gavin Doherty is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin, and co-founder of SilverCloud Health. He completed his doctorate at the University of York, before undertaking postdoctoral work at CNR in Pisa and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK before moving to TCD. He is interested in design for specific application areas, and has led a number of interdisciplinary projects in a number of different domains. A major focus of his work over the last decade has been on the design of technologies for mental health. The aim has been to develop systems which can increase access to, increase engagement with, and assist in improving the outcomes of mental health interventions.
This seminar is part of our ongoing series from researchers in HCI. See here for our current schedule.