SMARTlab Information Kit - 24aug10

The SMARTlab Digital Media Institute for Site-Specific
Media, Performance, Art, Design and Sustainable
Technology Innovation
http://www.SMARTlab.uk.com 1
The aim of the SMARTlab is to work across sectors and disciplines to instigate and support
positive cultural change. SMARTlab insists upon an ethical and socially responsible
community collaboration model, which informs and enriches the academic domain by
encouraging teams of artists and cultural sector creatives to work closely across disciplinary
boundaries to invent new models and tools for learning. This model, over 17 years, has made
real impact by helping to change the academy from within by enabling many more women,
artists, open source advocates, ‘non-standard’ learners and people with disabilities to gain the
highest level of 'credit' for their practical work and scholarship, to the point that, once they
have gained their own PhDs, they can help to shape new models of inclusive, applied
practice-based research so that it can transform the university sector from within.
The SMARTlab Practice-based PhD Programme has graduated over 30 PhDs who have
gone on to lead major institutions and labs worldwide (see the Index of graduates, attached).
The programme currently supports a cohort of 35 international PhD candidates in the fields of
Design, New Media and Performance, Digital Media, ICT4d, Assistive Technologies for
People with Disabilities and the Elderly, Technology Futures, Wearables and SMART
Textiles, Performance Technologies, Assistive Tech and Innovations, Technology Enhanced
Learning for Health and Well Being, Digital Inclusion, Haptic and HCI integrated studies, and
‘Meaningful Games’ or Mobile Games for Learning.
The SMARTlab Mission is to bring together teams of designers, artists, scholars,

technologists and policy makers to share a commitment to creative technology innovation for
real social change.
In our knowledge exchange PLAYroom and linked studios in the London Docklands, and at
sister sites world wide, we provide a world-class research and incubation space for academic
staff, practice-based PhD students and interdisciplinary teams of artists and technologists,
scholars and education experts, community workers and industry representatives, working
together to create and test the efficacy of new media and informatics tools designed for a
‘universal design’ ethos.
Together, we make new media tools, games, software applications, live and telematic
performances that demonstrate our model of social inclusion through the sharing of
intellectual, creative and innovative capital.
About the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute
The SMARTlab Digital Media Institute (for site specific media, performing and digital arts)
brings designers, media artists, performers, technologists, scholars, business and e-
commerce specialists, engineers, medical experts, and policy makers to sites around the
world where their combined skills can make a real difference for communities, both locally
and globally.
The SMARTlab, was founded in 1993, and has operated - with a number of partners, from a
number of bases internationally - since 1991. In 2005 we took up a new home base in
bespoke studios at the University of East London in the heart of the Docklands. This space
offers an ideal setting for creative exchange, both nationally and globally, and provides a
base for our major collaborations with the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games.
The SMARTlab has spread its wings to fill those new purpose built studios, including the
MAGIC (Multimedia & Games Innovation Centre) PLAYroom, incubation and training spaces
with linked fabrication, simulation, and product design facilities. We also work closely with the
MATRIX studios funded by SONY: our main partner institute, providing a high-definition
multistream film/video production / performance facility all on site.
For the past 17 years, the

SMARTlab has gained
recognition as one of the
world’s leading Practice-based
PhD Programmes, and is
viewed as an incubator for the
next generation of talent and
high-level scholarship in the
‘ArtSci’ domain.
We are currently located in the

heart of the Olympic and
Thames Gateway
Regeneration Area for East London, SMARTlab occupies the central corridor of the largest
and most productive Knowledge Transfer unit (the Knowledge Dock), providing a scholarly
and creative community base for cross-sector development within and beyond the university
sector. Since making the move to UEL. The SMARTlab has run major national and
international seminars, events and knowledge cafés, as well as a range of interactive think-
tanks, club nights and blue-sky labs. Regular formal lecture programmes and community
outreach projects are in process. Local and international organisations are invited to contact
us to collaborate and participate.
www.smartlab.uk.com
www.uel.ac.uk/smartlab
Activities
The SMARTlab is a Digital Media & Creative Technology Innovation Centre with three distinct
threads of activity:
A practice-based PhD programme and research centre for designers, artists and
technologists working in artistic domains, who have long encountered difficulties in placing
their work in relation to the academy: in finding appropriate ways to 'measure' artistic practice
in 'research exercises', in identifying appropriately flexible and experimental forms for artistic
research processes and outcomes, and in competing for academic funding;
A suite of community outreach and digital inclusion projects around e-inclusion and design for
ability, assistive technology, IT for women and girls, and educational inclusivity;
A knowledge transfer centre and Gamelab/PLAYroom that operates as a space where local
communities can join forces with UEL academics, artists, technologists and game designers
to make and test games and interactive tools.
The SMARTlab holds a 'universal design' concept at heart: by designing for the segments of
society whose interests and needs are least served by 'off the shelf' technologies - e.g.
women, young people at risk, and people with (extreme) disabilities - we aim to create
socially inclusive, sustainable projects and products of use to ALL.
The SMARTlab team holds a strong collaborative ethos in its work and includes live artists,
performers, dance and movement specialists, visual artists, filmmakers, photographers,
sculptors, textile experts, fashion designers, poets/writers, composers/ musicians, sound
artists, VR engineers, programmers, game and interface designers, and e-business
specialists who design for sustainable development, social change and community well-
being.
Ethos
SMARTlab's ethos is simple: every project is

intimately grounded in a community, culture or
research environment. The team spends the time
to get to the know the local people, issues,
concerns and needs before involving the larger
group of experts, which may include artists,
computer scientists, medical and social care
professionals, educators, and scholars. The
larger, integrated cohort then develops new
technology tools with real social impact, whether
for individuals, for groups, or for wider
international aims.
The SMARTlab selects projects and teams on the basis of ethical concerns, social
engagement and the ability to work effectively in interdisciplinary groups, as well as for the
originality and potential impact of the research, in basic and applied terms.
In every context, the aim is to effect knowledge transfer within the team, between the teams
and local communities, and in broader academic and industry relations.
SMARTlab Communities
The SMARTlab works in communities. The three primary target groups are women, children
& young people, and people with disabilities.
Nationally and internationally the SMARTlab works off-site but in situ: in women’s shelters,
schools, hospitals, rehabilitation centres, and also travels to meet and ideate with its partners
in universities, industry think-tank settings and retreats.
Locally we operate out of a main UK site at our

current ‘home’ studio and ‘PLAYroom’ at UEL,
with sister sites in operation (and accessible via
telematic stream) in New York, Atlanta, Ohio, Los
Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver,
Dublin, Amsterdam, Fes, Marrakech, Alibag,
Mumbai, Dubai and Cairo.
The SMARTlab is acknowledged for its community

work and this is reflected in its funding. Support
comes from a variety of sources from research grants to charity and foundation grants and
industry / CSR funding.
SMARTlab operates alongside an independent charity known as ‘SafetyNET’

(http://www.safespaces.net) recognised as a best practice model for community
engagement in creative technology innovation by the US government and by partners at the
U.N., World Bank, Microsoft, the BBC, NESTA, the Carl Sagan Trust, The Wellcome Trust,
The Gulbenkian Trust, LEGO Europe, and many other past and present partners.
The Method
Projects are designed to meet the needs of those

communities or social groups least represented or
supported by ‘off the shelf’ technology tools for
education, communication, skills training and/or
artistic and social empowerment.
The MAGIC PLAYroom
MAGIC is a creative space. It sits at the heart of SMARTlab, a research

centre whose mission is to produce scholarship that becomes an
international point of reference for the digital media field.
MAGIC, which has been funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund
(HEIF2), will apply this research to 'real world' problems. Working with
colleagues here in UEL's Knowledge Dock, we plan to develop MAGIC
into a dynamic interface between UEL, business and the wider
community.
MAGIC aims to:
act as an intellectual hub, offering researchers a 'third' space where they can interact with
each other, with the private sector, and with policy makers, to explore the shape of our digital
future, provide an innovative way of connecting with communities, using the new generation
of pervasive, cheap or free, 'citizens' technologies that are an increasingly powerful tool for
social change, and enable experimentation with new business models, as a maturing field
reaches its commercial potential and creates fresh opportunities for economic and social
development.
Digital Media Expertise
Our Technical Arts/Design Interaction team are highly experienced and equipped to deliver a
range of creative digital media solutions including edutainment, training and multimedia
projects using different multimedia technologies (DVD, CD, web, interactive 3D space).
Our resident artists, technologists and PhD students offer a range of specialized, unique and
innovative expertise including:
• Visualization, simulation and interactive 3D modelling

• 3D interactive entertainment, stereoscopy & games
The SMARTlab team product presentations using new technologies include:
• High-end HD film, video production and editing

• Bespoke visual presentations for offline and online
• Graphics and website (web 2.0) design and management
• Concept and brand design with full design package
• On-line systems & internet presentations
• 2D/3D designs and animations
• Touch screen interfaces
Clients we have worked with:
• BGCA/Microsoft Clubtech
• Knowledge Dock, UEL
• Celebrating Enterprise, European Union Social Funds Equal
• Urban Buzz
• NESTA
• BBC
• LEGO Europe
• The European Commission
• Microsoft Community Affairs
• Nokia
SMARTlab Research Team and Staff
The SMARTlab team operates across genres,

disciplinary and cultural boundaries. It aims to create
ethically and socially responsible media, art works, and
to inform the next generation of designers, artist-made
technology tools. The team holds a 'universal design'
concept at heart: designing for the segments of society
whose interests and needs are least served by 'off the
shelf' technologies. The aim is to create projects that
will stimulate further development and new market.
The SMARTlab team includes designers, live artists,

performers, dance and movement specialists, visual
artists, filmmakers, photographers, sculptors, textile
experts, fashion designers, poets/writers,
composers/musicians, sound artists, VR engineers,
programmers, game designers, interface designers,
urban planners, architects, policy analysts, and specialists in e-business. All the work is
collaborative and enables sustainable development, social change and community well-being.
About SMARTlab
The SMARTlab's cohort of trans-disciplinary medical and well being experts, assistive
technology mentors and practitioners, artists, technologist and business colleagues bring an
impressive resume of credentials in Experience Design, live and virtual; we have worked with
Disney special effects leaders such as Rhythm and Hues and Pixar, on major theme park
developments and hospital & other site-based art and media installations, and have
presented major interactive exhibits at all the major international graphics and design
conferences (Siggraph, MILIA, IBC, BAFTA et al). We also have considerable experience in
the advertising sector, and team members have worked with Yahoo, Saatchi & Saatchi,
Unilever, OldNavy/Gap, Lego, et al. In addition, we are renowned for our large scale
performance events, which bring dance, theatre and music with interactive media together
with olfactory (scent and taste experiences), robotic and other display forms for major
audiences at the U.N., World Summit et al. We were commissioned to design experiences for
the Omniglobe major exhibit ‘Plays well with Others’ (pictured above) in 2004. We were
commissioned to write, design and perform the Special Olympics pre-Show in Dublin 2003,
and are at work on interactive live/media presentations for the 2012 games and Paralympics.
Our recent showcase at the Science Museum London also had rave reviews.
See
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2006/12/20/ecnchair20.xml
Creative Industries and Knowledge Transfer Experience
SMARTlab approaches experience design in an innovative format framed by improvisation,

test, and iteration of models for learning, sales, interactive arts, gaming and leisure. We see
Experience Design as a metaconcept that provides direction, vocabulary, and technique that
can enable multiple disciplines to work together in a unified manner- As Karl Long writes in
the “Experience Curve” http://blog.experiencecurve.com:
“Borrowing from the design strategies of successful theme parks, Experience Design
emerged in 2001 as a recognised design method for manufacturers and retailers in need of
generating excitement about their brands or in-store experience. Experience marketing is
meant to immerse the customer in a customized/custom built environment programmed to
educate and energise their enthusiasm about the brand.
The advent of online shopping has significantly affected the retail industries perception of the
in-store experience. No longer a necessity to go to the store retailers and product
manufacturers have to now rethink the promotion paradigm and pull bodies into stores to
protect their capital investment in brick and mortar and to rationalize their place and identity
on the street. Manufacturers have designed retail style outlets that are actually there not to
sell but to promote the brand. In New York City Samsung, Sony, Nokia and Adidas followed
the successful example of Apple by bringing their brand and its identity to the street making
their shops fun places to hang out in and to try the new products.”
User-centred Experience Design can be used to engage communities and to:

• build sustainable competitive advantages
• differentiate brands in a crowded world
• build brand equity and perceived value
• drive brand awareness
• create excitement and momentum
SMARTlab has been working with local government and development agencies in East
London since 2005 to provide strategic vision and skills/experience training as neighborhoods
of East London prepare for major transformation with the arrival of the Olympic and
Paralympic Games in 2012. In this we will build further on our existing track record of event
and experience design and management: We have, for instance, led major workshops for the
European Commission and Media Programmes in Creative Arts and Experience Labs, with
events ranging from day workshops to full week retreats that take ideas from concept to 2d.3d
prototype stage, and that encourage ‘emotional intelligence’ and experience cues recognition,
as well as standard ‘pitch strategies’.
By means of example the SMARTlab could provide the following Knowledge Exchange
experience sessions for industry:
- “Discovering the Message”, Experience Thinktanks taking clients through an engaging

process of discovering what they want their messages to say, and the best ways to deliver
specific messages.
- Delivery System: development and iterative testing of bespoke systems for delivery of
selected brand messages across the sector.
- Proof of Concepts workshops and open Pitch sessions.
- Competitions and Awards (with BAFTA et al)
- “Training the Trainers for Experience Design”: extended workshops and short courses.
We aim to collaborate closely with the LDA on the Games Academy, and with BAFTA et al on
a new set of awards for interactive experience design achieved through Meaningful Games
and Mobile Games for Learning.
The attached illustrations provide samples of our highly acclaimed Experience Design
concepts. Many more appear on our websites.
The SMARTlab’s current main UK site is based at the University of East London Docklands
Campus, and hosts a formidable team of recognised industry professionals including health
and Assistive Technology Exerts/Designers/ Artists/Technologists/Programmers/Architects
and Engineers. Many of our team started their careers in the commercial sector and have a
wealth of expertise in Experience Design for the Health, Retail, Entertainment and Hospitality
industries. The SMARTlab team is available for consultation to help you explore, focus and
create the right message and delivery approach for your clients and customers. We can host
creative brainstorming sessions at our MAGIClab located at the SMARTlab UEL Docklands
campus, or can visit your site for creative focus sessions with your team.
Our Sites:
We have established centres over the years at the BBC Open University, KMI (Knowledge
Media Institute), University of Surrey Technology Studios, and Central Saint Martins College
of Art & Design Innovation Centre. When UEL built us a building in 2005 we moved there to
set up the MAGIC lab. SMARTclubs (bringing creative technology solutions to disadvantaged
young people and their communities) have been tested by over 5.4 million of the least
economically advantaged young people in America, and a new set of SMARTclubs is being
developed now for the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and African) region.
Other SMARTlab sister sites and SMART-futures Centres and experience/teaching units
have been set up in Dublin (with at Trinity College and UCD in partnership with the Science
Gallery and Central Remedial clinic), New York (in association with NYU, Columbia,
Eyebeam Studios and the Montefiore Children’s Hospital), Seattle (with the University of
Washington and Microsoft), Singapore (with NTU and the KK Hospital for Women and
Children and IDA), Brazil (with the British Council and Interdatica Centre in Sal Paulo), and at
the ThreeWays Special School and Stephen Hawking School for Special Children, in
England, in partnership with the Department for Children, Families and Schools and Becta.
New centres and projects are underway in these places.
In the UK, we are working with the CCA and Wellcome Trust to extend our work on setting up
a new set of sensory studios for healing and education, with plans to install new centre at for
the Great Ormond Street School and Evelina Children’s Hospital in future. We are also
working with CBBC Hospital, in partnership with the Football Foundation and CBBC. We are
also in initial talks for further expansion and distribution of our projects from a central London
hub to the more distanced and diverse areas of the UK, with many more invitations pending
and new set of linked rural studies in development for testing of project ideas throughout the
Scottish Highlands and Islands.
In the Middle East, in addition to Doha we have pending invitations to set up SMART-futures
Centres in Cairo (for Ritsec), Dubai (for the Dubai Women’s College and Microsoft), Abu
Dhabi (for the Khalifa fund) and expressions of interest from other countries. We can set up
small flexible and portable projects for hospital and home settings, as well as large scale
sensory environments, research and user testing labs for permanent residency: all sizes,
scales and purposes of design for ability, health and well being can be accommodated.
The People
SMARTlab Senior Management
Professor Lizbeth Goodman- SMARTlab Founder and Director (UK and International)
Lizbeth founded SMARTlab 17 years ago while at the BBC-Open

University. She has led the lab's developments through 4 universities,
many large scale funded projects, multiple international sister site
development, and the establishment of what is now known as one of the
world's most successful practice-based PhD programmes.
She has supervised 32 PhDs to successful completion and has examined for many other PhD
programmes around the world. As a researcher, she brings her experience of creating
ground-up technology solutions for special learning needs and for lifelong learning in
disadvantaged communities worldwide, with an emphasis on creative innovation strategies for
social entrepreneurship and leadership models that support learning for all.
Lizbeth is also Director of Research for Futurelab Education (chaired by Lord Puttnam), and
Honourary International Research Director for RITSEC in Cairo: the base for inclusive
educational projects for women in the Middle East). For the past four years she has held the
Microsoft Community Affairs Senior Research Fellowship in Innovative Technology Solutions
for Communities at Risk. She is best known as an advocate of community-based ethical
learning and teaching models using interactive tools and games to inspire and engage
learners of all ages.
Originally trained in Drama/Performance, Literature, and Philosophy, and active for many
years as researcher, professional performer and TV-radio-convergent media presenter, she
has published widely in the areas of performance technologies, e-learning, connected
learning, embodied learning, social networking for community engagement, social
entrepreneurship models in ICT, and games for learning. In this regard, she co-developed
several groundbreaking teaching and learning tools and games with significant worldwide
take up, which have led to the foundation of several charities for women and children at risk.
She has written and edited 13 books and many peer-reviewed articles and broadcasts.
She won the Lifetime Achievement Award for volunteer service to women and children in
education and technology in 2003. She was named Best Woman in the Public Sector and
Academia and Outstanding Woman of Achievement in Technology by Blackberry/RIM in
2008. She was nominated and commended by the Times Higher Awards in 2007 for
outstanding service to students with disabilities. She often serves as a lead evaluator, judge
and mentor for international organisations encouraging excellence in educational and social
engagement, including currently for the British Prime Minister1s SHINE Awards, the
Wellcome Trust, the European Commission Future Emerging Technologies & SaferInternet
Plus Programmes, the Genius Award, the Canadian Fund for Innovation, Creative Capital,
Microsoft Partners in Learning, NESTA, the British Council, and the Strategic Forum for
Research in Education.
Huw Williams- Chief Technology Officer and Co-Convenor of the Future Emerging
Technologies Research Cluster
Huw is SMARTlab’s CTO (Chief Technical Officer), and was also recently
appointed to head IT initiatives for LOCOG, the London Organising
Committee of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He has been
with SMARTlab since the beginning, offering 17 years of experience in
leading innovations and broadcast/audience development. His
experience in managing large teams of engineers, medical and health
experts, broadcasters and scholars in co-creation of major learning and communications
projects makes him the ideal CTO for SMART-futures projects. Huw is responsible for
creative technology innovation in terms of our technological vision and interoperability and
scalability of tools and platforms.
Previously, he was Head of Research and Innovation for the BBC, responsible for the BBC
technology innovation function across broadcast and new media technology. He was
responsible for developing innovation initiatives to capture and develop ideas and to improve
partnerships though establishing collaborations with major external organisations such as
NHK in Japan, UK universities and other research establishments. Projects at BBC Research
included leading the technology teams behind the Freesat service to develop a new
broadcast service (including Set top box specification), display systems beyond High
Definition and open source compression systems as well as the BBC Backstage developer
network. Previous roles at the BBC included Head of Technology for Television and BBC
News (looking at High Definition issues) and as Head of New Media development for BBC
Radio and Music, he set up the technical and design teams that developed the BBC Radio
websites. Before joining the BBC, he founded a number of new media companies developing
interactive TV software, and worked as a consultant for a range of clients.
Dr Mick Donegan, Deputy Director Academic & Principal Researcher
Mick Donegan is the Deputy Academic Director (Principal Researcher,

Multimodal Interfaces and Assistive Tech), and the head of a new
research group on Interfaces for Assistive Technology & Creativity at the
SMARTlab. He is a teacher and an Assistive Technology specialist who
has extensive experience in assessing, teaching, training, and supporting
people with complex communication difficulties. Prior to joining
SMARTlab, he worked at The ACE Centre, Oxford, following his time as IT Coordinator and
Deputy Head Teacher at Wilson Stuart Special School, one of the largest schools for
physically disabled children in the UK. He has founded a charity, SpecialEffect, that uses
technology to enhance access to games and creative self-expression for people with a wide
range of disabilities.
He is a leader in two major research projects: COGAIN, a European Network of Excellence

(www.cogain.org). Mick is Co-coordinator of the Workpackage relating to ‘User
Requirements’. Mick has recently set up a Charity dedicated specifically to developing
assistive technology for enhanced access to computer games and self-expression in areas
such as music, art and sculpture. http://gameon.onestopcms.co.uk (Under development)
Mick’s particular technology and disability-related interests/passions include Speech
Recognition, Access to Video Games and Leisure Software, Eye Controlled Technology and
Remote Support Technology - areas in which he has specialised over an extended period of
time. He has been involved in several highly regarded and influential projects, such as the
DfES/Becta sponsored Speech Recognition Project (completed 2000), Telenet (completed
2002) which examined the use of remote support technology for people with severe
disabilities and ‘DECO’ (completed 2006) a joint project with the Physics Department of
Cambridge University to make ‘Dasher’ ‘eye control friendly’. He has published widely and
won many awards for his work. In 2006 he was awarded a PhD for a longitudinal study
investigating the conditions for success in using assistive technology for people with physical
disabilities in mainstream education.
Verity Slater: SMARTlab Deputy Director Development
Verity Slater recently joined SMARTlab on a part-time basis building on

her consultancy support for new projects and partnerships for Futurelab.
In her previous post at Arts Council England, she led a programme of
strategic partnerships, interventions and projects to support artistic and
sector development in visual arts, media and creative industries. Prior to
this, Verity managed the Sciart programme at the Wellcome Trust: a
national funding scheme offering support for collaborative projects involving artists and
scientists. Verity has a continuing interest in creative trans-disciplinary practices involving
science, technology and media; working as an editor, advisor and reviewer on a range of
cross-sector programmes. She studied Fine Art as a first degree before completing a Masters
degree in Arts Policy and Management at the University of London. She brings to SMARTlab
an in-depth knowledge of the contemporary arts sector and of the science research sector in
the UK and beyond, as well as vast experience of partnership working with individual
practitioners and agencies including artist-led initiatives and higher education institutions.
She is highly experienced in negotiating the funding context in the UK and beyond, including
public, private and sponsorship models. She is widely known as an instigator, advocate and
influencer; supporting creative practice in the broadest cultural contexts.
SMARTlab Core Support Team
Babak Davarpanah Varnosefadarani
Babak Davarpanah Varnosefadarani is our Community and Social

Networking Manager and an international consultant with many years of
experience working for World Bank, UNDP, and other agencies in Middle
East, Central Asia and China, as well communities in London docklands.
As an economist / urban and regional planner (Architectural Association)
he has evaluated the socio/economic impact of local environmental
initiatives and has developed national urban upgrading programmes. His prime focus is to
help develop sustainable local economic development strategies through participatory
planning and partnership, with particular interest in main streaming cross cutting issues such
as gender, minority rights and information and communication technologies. He has taught
English business communication in Paris and China, and alternative urban planning in UK
and abroad. His current research focus is bridging knowledge and digital gaps, through
innovatory interdisciplinary community based activities.
Anna Sophia Schenk
Anna Sophia is Research Coordinator at SMARTlab. Born in Germany,

Anna Sophia has spent the last ten years of her life in the UK, Italy, The
Netherlands and India developing a strong interest in any issues related to
arts, media, development and human rights, and coordinating a series of
training and research activities in the NGO and university sectors. Anna
Sophia holds a Master's degree in International Cooperation and
Development from the Institute for Advanced Study in Pavia after which she has set out in the
Middle East and assisted a youth organisation in their strategic planning and project
development. After working in Italy as a project coordinator for a university research centre
engaged in issues of human rights and human development, she is now supporting the
development of research applications at the national and EU level and administering the
SMARTlab PhD programme.
Rachel Lasebikan
Rachel, our Funding, PR & Events Coordinator, has over 12 years of

experience working in creative business development and specialises in
the study and application of creative innovation through design, business
application, industry and consumer insight. She holds an MA in Design
Studies from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London and a
degree in Fashion from Southampton University. Rachel has worked on the
development of a variety of innovation projects including Brand, Corporate Relations and
Legacy development for the African Broadcast Network, created the first African fair-trade
clothing concession for the Top Shop flagship store, and supplied African trend resources for
the WGSN international trend agency. Rachel started her career in PR and product
development. She has spent the last six years researching and developing the viability of
creating international and sustainable African products and brands through social enterprise
and development, exploring the exciting developing African fashion and television industry,
growing African Diaspora and the implementation of more positive African stories in global
society.
Anita McKeown
Anita McKeown’s role at SMARTlab is within Project Development –

Partnership and Participation. She is an interdisciplinary artist, producer
and researcher working in the public domain, exploring the potential of
open-source software to transform space to place. In 2004 she won
the prestigious Bravo Award, the only non U.S. citizen to do so for a digital
public art project in Memphis, TN, and her work continues to be exhibited
and performed nationally and internationally. In 2008, she was elected by invitation to the
Royal Society of Arts. She is Co-founder and Creative Director of Arts Services Un-
incorporated (ASU) a not-for-profit community arts organisation established in 2006, and
based in South East London. Since 1998 she has worked for a number of organisations
within the arts e.g. Lewisham Youth theatre, Razor Edge Theatre Company, Music in Prisons,
Heart N Soul Theatre Company, utilising her extensive experience of project development
and management.
Stanislava Mislanova
Stanislava currently works for SMARTlab in the role

of Administrator, Finance and Creative Project
Assistant as well as PA to the Director. Her
background, aside from Hotel Management and
Childcare, is in Anthropology. After training in
ethnographic research and fieldwork, she executed
her own research projects focussing on expressive
mechanism of dance and music, as well as studying
life in homeless shelters as part of her dissertation. Stanislava has been leading Samba
dancing and costume making workshops for undergraduates on campus, as well as local
schools groups from East London. Her interest and experience within creative arts and her
studies for a diploma in design has recently opened up new opportunities within the current
and future creative developments at SMARTlab, in collaboration with the lab projects and
MAGICbox.
SMARTlab Core Technical Team
Toby Borland
Toby is our MAGICbox Researcher/Manager and has worked with

SMARTlab as an artist-technologist dedicated to the real world
applications of technology, since 2005. He joined the team in an official
capacity, to run one of our main London studios, in February 2007 as
th
MAGICbox Manager. He was born on 27 February 1971 in Bray, Ireland,
left home at 15 and hitch-hiked to India at 17, working as street performer.
Toby returned to Dublin at 20 and returned to school to study mechanical and design
engineering, at Trinity College Dublin. He graduated at 25 and worked mainly as a sculptor
with stints in electronics and programming until 29. He left to travel around South and Central
America for a year, and returned in 2001. For the past few years he has been working part-
time in facilitating sculpture projects within addiction rehabilitation centres, part-time
developing mini-foundry techniques, and part-time developing Computer Aided Manufacturing
interfaces in relation to artistic/sculpture projects. Toby is currently finishing an
implementation of an analemmic equatorial sundial. He now finds himself in the uncharted
territory somewhere between art and engineering. He has a cantankerous old Z650
motorcycle and no television.
Clilly Castiglia
Clilly Castiglia, SMARTlab's Director of Operations, was the Senior Vice

President and Cofounder of Technology Developers LLC in New York
City. Her role was to oversee the Design and Production of new
technology and experience based projects. For clients such as Yahoo, Old
NAVY/GAP, Unilever, Papalote Children’s Museum. Prior to starting this
company she was the Director of Operations at The NYU Centre for
Advanced Technology/NYU Media Research Lab. There she managed the development of
technologies in the areas of collaborative tools and environments, new interfaces and input
methods for wireless and handheld devices, Tangible media, High-end Graphics and Real-
time animation.
Taey Kim
Taey manages digital media & the interactive brand production team at
SMARTlab, ensuring SMARTlab produces value, community and
recognition in brand identity. She leads on developing core websites, and
drives a focus on creative communication strategies. She is an experienced
digital media & Web creator, specializing in interactive multimedia design within social
networking and engineering aspects currently. Taey started her SMARTlab career as an
intern when we were based at Central Saint Martins in 2003 and has worked with us through
2 MAs and now into her final year of the PhD. She is as an award winning digital storyteller
(Best Contents in International Digital Arts Festival, 2000, Korea), as a hypertext writer, and
developed her skills in the MA Interactive Multimedia programme (University of the Arts
London) to enhance computer languages within multimedia platforms. She has been working
as a digital PR and web 2.0 strategy consultant in creative media. Taey is also digital media
artist / digital culture researcher who is using narrative visual elements within multimedia
based installations. Her subject matter stems from questions surrounding the definition of
global transformation within a far-east Asian identity and the construction of the nomadic
subject. She has been invited to show her work at a number of exhibitions and screenings
internationally. She has been nominated for best creative player in the Blackberry Women &
Technology Awards (2008, UK) and won at the Europrix Multimedia Awards (2008, Austria).
Celine Llewellyn-Jones
Learning Technologist and Online Learning Coordinator/Virtual World

Developer for SMARTlab, and Associate Researcher in Mobile Learning for
Futurelab
Celine is a highly experienced Learning Technologist, playing a key role in
all our online learning models for MAs and PhDs. She is a renowned expert
on how people move and learn through virtual worlds and mobile games.
Celine has 7 years experience as a Learning Technologist, working in the business and
academic sector with a specific interest in games for learning, locative experiences and virtual
worlds. As a freelancer she has taught children, young adults and adults and designed
analogue and locative outdoor games and experiences. She works part-time as a Learning
Technologist at London Metropolitan University. She has a background in fine and electronic
arts and comes from a family of instructors, from which she has inherited a passion for
engaging and inspiring instruction. Her dream is to deliver learning experiences that help
students love learning and engage them in ways she could only have dreamt of being
engaged when she was a student herself.
Jana Riedel
As a Digital Artist and Filmmaker, Jana contributes her skills in media arts
and digital editing technologies, as well as her talent as a film-maker and
documentary artist to the team. Jana is responsible for the creation of the
visual content of many of SMARTlab’s projects. She has also been actively
involved in taking technology applications to artists and students, helping
people of many different levels of ability to integrate those technologies into
their working practices and lives, and has done the technical project management for several
core SMARTlab projects since joining the team in 2003.
Vanessa Wiegand
Vanessa is SMARTlab’s Video Producer and Technology Manager. With

her team, she produces our video and media projects for presentations
and research applications. She co-ordinates all technical set-ups at live
performances on-site and off-site and she manages our hardware and
software resources.
She holds an MA in Film and Photography and a degree in Media Design. Vanessa has a
vast experience in traditional and digital media from offset printing and analogue photography
to 3D animation, design and filmmaking. She is an enthusiastic photographer, cameraperson
and jewellery maker. She transforms her own thirst for knowledge into advising researchers,
students and her own team and into lecturing. Her passion is in researching media in an
anthropological context. She speaks several languages and continues eagerly to study them.
SMARTlab Core Academic Team:
SMARTlab Faculty and Post-Doctoral Researchers:

Professor Lizbeth Goodman, Dr Mick Donegan, Huw Williams (as above/Senior
Management)
+
Senior Faculty
Dr Sara Diamond
Sara is currently President of the Ontario College of Art & Design

(Canada’s largest Art & Design college). She took her PhD from
SMARTlab in 2009, and has long worked with us as an associate senior
faculty member advising on all aspects of knowledge transfer across
sectors and on new media design. Previous to joining OCAD she was
founder/Director of the Banff New Media Institute, Canada. She is an
award winning documentary film maker and new media developer, and holds many
prestigious grants and funded projects.
Dr Sher Doruff
Sher Doruff is Adjunct Faculty member at SMARTlab/University of East

London. She is also currently a Research Fellow with the ARTI Lectoraat
and teaches/mentors in the Masters of Choreography programme of the
Amsterdam School for the Arts. Her doctoral research and dissertation,
“The Translocal Event and the Polyrhythmic Diagram,” mapped
collaborative, creative processes in networked performance practice. She
continues to develop an ontology of the diagrammatic as an artistic research technique of
image/word relations and has published numerous papers in academic and artistic contexts.
She completed her PhD with SMARTlab at Central Saint Martins in 2005.
Dr Brian Duffy
Brian is Associate Principal Researcher at SMARTlab, and also senior

engineer at SAP. He leads the Haptics and Robotics for Human
Communications Group for SMARTlab. He has been actively involved in
research in many international academic and non-academic institutions
throughout Europe in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence and haptics
for over 14 years. Currently, Brian is a Research Engineer at the Institut
Eurecom, Sophia Antipolis, and France. Previously, Brian conducted postdoctoral research at
University College Dublin (UCD), directed the Anthropos Group at Media Lab Europe, and
research for GMD, Germany and INSA de Lyon, France. Brian has a Masters of Engineering
Science, a Bachelor of Science in Production Engineering, is a member of the IEEE, a
Chartered Engineer, and holds the Eur.Ing qualification.
Dr Leslie Hill, PhD Programme co-Convenor
Dr Leslie Hill is Principal Researcher in Performance Technologies at

UEL’s SMARTlab and Co-convener of the PhD programme. She holds a
doctorate in Theatre Film & Television Studies from the University of
Glasgow. Hill works as an artist and academic across performance,
installation, film and publication with a special interest in socially engaged
work and sci-art collaborations. She has produced over 40 projects in a
range of media including live performance, installation, publication and film and has won
numerous awards, grants and commissions. Her work has been shown widely internationally
at venues such as Sydney Opera House and the British Council Showcase at the Edinburgh
Festival. (www.placelessness.com). Hill’s most recent book Performance and Place, Palgrave
MacMillan (2006) is widely taught on courses in the UK and USA. Hill is a NESTA Dream
Time Fellow.
Dr Susan Kozel
Susan Kozel works at the convergence of performance and digital

technologies. In her role as Principal Researcher at the SMARTlab she
focuses on motion capture, wearables, and mobile social computing. With
a PhD in philosophy and a professional practice as a
dancer/choreographer working with responsive computer systems, her
research integrates phenomenological methodologies with physical
improvisation.
She is the director of Mesh PerformancePractices http://www.meshperformance.org and has

performed and published widely. Her sole authored book Closer: performance, technologies,
philosophy (2007) was published by The MIT Press and her second book has the working title
Social Choreographies: Corporeal Narratives with Mobile Media. Current projects include
Intuition in Creative Processes with the University of Art and Design in Helsinki; the Designing
Difference initiative, which applies methodologies from performance and philosophy to the
design of expressive mobile platforms for bodies of mixed abilities; and a series of
performances called Technologies of Inner Spaces.
Dr Jacquelyn Ford Morie
Dr Jacquelyn Ford Morie has been at the forefront of immersive world

technology since 1990. She focuses on affective and meaningful
implementations of virtual environments, and received her PhD in this
topic from UEL’s SMARTlab in 2008. She was an early adopter of the
online 3D world, Second Life and as a resident of that virtual world has
been an innovative creator of content and functionality. Morie produced
one of Second Life1s first international art showcase, The New West, in 2006. She next
created the artwork, Remembrance and Remains in Second Life, that features a small Iraqi
Village, populated by autonomous villagers, to show the more human face of that war-torn
country. Within her role at UEL's SMARTlab, she investigates online world topics such as
space, identity, and play, writing papers that have been accepted and delivered at
conferences worldwide.
Faculty and Post-Doctoral Fellows
Dr Ryya Bread
Dr Ryya. Bread is SMARTlab‘s Research Methodologies Convenor for the

PhD. She was awarded a Doctoral Studentship from Falmouth College of
Art (1997-2001); having a background in Fine Art (BA), and an MA (with
distinction) in the History of Modern Art & Design. PhD research focused
on an emerging embodied ‘methodology,’ the aim being to initiate,
develop and represent a dialogue between linguistic and artistic practices.
Rooted in a feminist discourse on Subjectivity; the thesis argued for, and enacted, a positive
framing of individual embodied experience through the identity text of the
researcher/practitioner, in this case, ‘RyyA. Bread©’. As well as the written word, the final
submission included sculpture, photography, video and live performance. After seven years of
further experience organizing exhibitions for commercial art galleries, and working closely
with other artists, the recent introduction to SMARTlab marks a return to active research
within and well beyond the scope of an academic context. She lives in Falmouth, where she
is also taking up a part-time post as Curatorial Manager of the new Sustainable Art Gallery on
the Lizard.
Dr Deveril, Post-Doc Fellow
Deveril has been a supervising SMARTlab PhDs since 2007 and in that
time has completed a number of short films, acted as technical director
on the annual Smash! project in North Devon, been involved in a joint
exhibition at Novas Gallery in London, completed a chapter in the book
Decentring Dance (Lansdale 2008), extended his writing practice into
feature film scripts, become a father, and thought about the future of
cinema and interactive narratives.
Dr Chris Hales, Post-Doc Fellow
Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Interactive Film. Chris is an

internationally renowned specialist in ‘interactive moving image’, as
practitioner, educator and researcher. His PhD “Rethinking the Interactive
Movie”, which developed the concept of ‘movie as interface’, was
successfully completed in October 2006 at SMARTlab. His cdroms have
been selected at numerous film/multimedia festivals, and his touch-screen
installation (showing a dozen or more of his interactive films) was presented in Seoul,
Helsinki, Warsaw, Nagoya, San Francisco and Sydney (amongst other places) and was
included in the landmark 2003 ‘Future Cinema’ exhibition curated by the ZKM. In summer
2008 he exhibited a retrospective of most of his films in a 9-room exhibition as part of the
Prague Triennale of Contemporary Art. He publishes frequently in the area of ‘interactive
moving image’, has taught almost 100 short workshop courses on this subject in numerous
institutions in Europe, and is a regular speaker at international events. He gives live
performances of interactive cinema to group audiences, either solo or as 'Cause and Effect'
(with Teijo Pellinen). Through SMARTlab, he obtained AHRB funding for a research project in
Prague to rediscover the "Kinoautomat" from 1967 - the world's first interactive movie.
Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Post-Doc Fellow
Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at

SMARTlab. Her work explores the relationships between players, digital
games and the narratives they create as a result of these experiences.
She has written within Games Studies on the role of gender, warfare,
protest and role-playing, and the ways in which players interpret these
varied aspects of the game play experience. Esther is Vice President of
the Digital Games Research Association and sub-editor for Games Studies and the Virtual
Worlds and Games Journal.
Will Pearson
Will is an expert in communications for the blind and partially sighted. He

works as a Researcher for both SMARTlab and Futurelab, and is
conducting his Phd at SMARTlab, studying mobile texts stimulating the
auditory imagination. He is currently a researcher and artist/programmer,
working with a range of open source development tools such as
Processing and openFrameworks, and working with clients such as the
Arts Council. In the past Will has worked for NESTA, where he was a core member of the
CEP Technology Working Group. He has a long-standing commitment to inclusive design (for
which he was made a Fellow of the RSA in October 2005). Will has his own creative business
supporting a number of musicians and illustrators. He has also worked as a consultant for
Pixel Lab (www.pixel-lab.co.uk), the UK’s premier consultancy supporting the videogaming
sector, working on the London Games Festival Fringe programme as a project manager.
Associate Researchers & SMARTlab long term Adjunct Faculty
Dr Rachel Armstrong (MD) is a medical doctor who chooses to work at

the cross section of art and science, to enable health and well being
projects to reach the widest population worldwide. She has been working
with SMARTlab since 2007. Known as writer, multimedia producer,
television presenter, arts collaborator and general medical practitioner
specializing in non-Darwinian techniques of evolution and the challenges
of the extra-terrestrial environment.
Camille Baker
Camille Baker is a Researcher with SMARTlab, leading on our BBC project

on Games for Thought/Somatics and Movement Studies. She is also a
Senior Lecturer at Brunel University, where she teaches Interactive Media.
Also a PhD Candidate with the SMARTlab, her work overall focussed on
Networked Performance Media. Her research interests include: mobile
devices, video art, live cinema, performance and interactive media,
responsive environments, media art installation, telematics, new media curating and
networked communities. Her background ranges from music composition, singing and
performance, to Executive Director/Curator of The Escape Artists Society in Vancouver,
Canada, and Lead Curator, Conference Director and Co-Performance Art Curator for New
Forms Festival in Vancouver, to editor-in-chief of an online pop-culture relationship support
magazine - Tales of Slacker Bonding (2000-2003), to new media and web design
/development, to documentary and online video and animation, to media art instructor, to
visual arts curating, to sculpture and modern dance performance.
Erin Beneteau
Erin is a speech language pathologist who has practiced in the field of

Augmentative Alternative Communication since first entering graduate
school in 1996. She has practiced in a variety of settings in the US, New
Zealand, and Ireland. She currently works for Tobii Technology, as a
trainer in using eye control and other forms of assistive technology. Her
previous research has involved: cultural and linguistic diversity, AAC
practices, and assistive technology access methods.
Professor Haim Bresheeth
Haim is the Research and Knowledge Exchange Leader and Director of

Matrix East Research Lab (SONY film studio) at the University of East
London, and a close collaborator on several major SMARTlab projects.
As a practitioner, Haim is best known as a filmmaker, photographer and
a film studies scholar whose professional career spans his years helping
to form what is now the London College of Communications, since early
2002. His books include the best-selling Introduction to the Holocaust (with Stuart Hood, 2
reprints since 1997), the first version of which was titled Holocaust for Beginners (1993) and
was reprinted many times.
James Brosnan
James is the SMARTlab’s Associate Research Fellow in Assistive

Technology Innovation. He has worked with us on the Trust Project,
StreetscalledHome, Guinevere’s Globe, Fellicean, and a number of major
externally funded projects since 2003. As a writer and researcher with
Cerebral Palsy, James has pioneered the use of a full generation of
communication and mobility technologies for people with severe physical
disabilities, and is currently co-authoring a book on Almost Too Late Technologies with
Professor Goodman.
Lucas Capelli
Lucas Capelli is an architect and sustainable design expert running major

projects at the IAAC (Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia) in
Barcelona. He has worked to date on several major projects in ‘fab
housing’ with SMARTlab and is currently engaged in setting up a sister
site and set of SMARTlab programmes for Barcelona, to kick off in 2011.
He will also begin his practice-based PhD with SMARTlab UK in the
Autumn of 2010. He is the author of Self-Sufficient Housing, the SELF-FAB house, and the
SELF-SUFFICIENT CITY (the last one is about to be lunched next May 2010) and the creator
and lead of the Advanced Architecture Contest. He is also the director of CORRETGER5 an
architecture and art gallery focused on interactive art.
www.iaac.net
www.advancedarchitecturecontest.org
www.corretger5.com
Steve Cooney
Steve has been a professional musician for forty years, firstly in Australia
where he was born and then for the last thirty years in Ireland, where he
is respected as a specialist in Gaelic music. He has accompanied many
of the finest international singers and and instrumentalists in diverse
genres, and his style of accompaniment of Irish music has been widely
copied. He has played on or produced more than 100 CD¹s, both
commercial and educational, and for the last number of years has accompanied Sinéad
O¹Connor. He underwent Aboriginal initiation in the Northern Territory of Australia in the
1970¹s and this remains his guiding philosophy. He has invented a unique geometric method
of simplifying and explaining music theory which he has tested for twenty years. This is the
subject of his PhD at SMARTlab, and he believes it can be a new international best-practice
model for early learning of music.
Dr Neil Datta
Dr Neil Datta is a graduate in English literature and now a theoretical

computer scientist specialising in the mathematical semantics of
programming languages. His NESTA fellowship with SMARTlab supports
the preliminary stages of his long-term project to explore the relationship
of certain aspects of poetry with mathematics and computing.
Professor Daria Dorosh
Dr Daria is an artist and senior researcher with SMARTlab and fashion

design professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.
She is a practicing artist and has had sixteen one-person shows since
1974. She was a founding member of A.I.R. Gallery in 1972, the first
artist-run art gallery in the United States established to showcase the
work of women artists. Fashion is a rich repository of social, historic, and
personal information which she integrates into her art theory and practice. She brings her
synthesis of art and fashion to the MAGIC Playroom where she is exploring the whole
garment knitting technology by Shima Seiki, digital fabric printing, and new ways of engaging
the public in designing their own surfaces and fashions. She took her PhD from SMARTlab in
2008.
Ron Edwards
Ron Edwards is the Co-founder and CEO of Ambient Performance, a UK

based firm specializing in 3D mobile and virtual world applications.
Ambient is the European distributor and service provider for Forterra
Systems OLIVE virtual world platform. Ron is a pioneer and thought
leader in helping organizations apply emerging technologies for better
communication, collaboration and training with over 17 years experience.
He is especially excited about the nascent metaverse and is developing projects in the core
metaverse areas of mobile augmented reality, virtual worlds, mirror worlds and mobile
lifelogging for a variety of clients in industry, government, consumer brands and education.
Ron is from Seattle, lives in London, is a SMARTlab PhD student at University of East
London researching collaboration in the mobile metaverse and blogs @
http://ambientperformance.com/connection.
Prof Mary Flanagan
Mary is Associate Professor at SMARTlab, and took her PhD in 2005. She
is also the newly appointed Endowed Chair of Media Arts at Dartmouth
University. She investigates everyday technologies through critical writing,
artwork, and activist design projects. Her work has been exhibited
internationally at museums, festivals, and galleries, including: the
Guggenheim, The Whitney Museum of American Art, SIGGRAPH, The
Banff Centre, The Moving Image Centre, New Zealand, Central Fine Arts Gallery NY, Artists
Space NY, the University of Arizona, University of Colorado-Boulder, and venues in Brazil,
France, UK, Canada, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Australia. Her essays on digital art,
cyberculture, and gaming have appeared in periodicals such as Art Journal, Wide Angle,
Intelligent Agent, Convergence, and Culture Machine, as well as several books. She is the
creator of "The Adventures of Josie True," the first web-based adventure game for girls, and
is implementing innovations in pedagogical and values-based game design. Mary Flanagan
holds MFA and MA degrees from the University of Iowa, a BA in Film from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. in Computational Media focusing on activist game design
from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, UK.
Dr Gina Joue
Gina holds a PhD in Science and an Msc in Cognitive Science and Natural Language, and is
currently studying to become a Medical Doctor. She works with SMARTlab in the areas of
crossover between health and human communications. She has experience of industry work
for SAP as an IMS Development Manager, and with the Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity
College Dublin as a Research Fellow.
Celine Llewellyn-Jones
Celine is a Researcher and Learning Technologist at SMARTlab and

London Metropolitan University, an Associate Researcher for Futurelab
and a freelance mobile and location-based game and experience designer.
She has an MA in Fine Art, an MA in Electronic Arts, an HEA teaching
and learning accreditation and is currently working towards a PhD
investigating the role of digitally augmented bodies in learning.
Dr Vesna Milanovic
Dr Vesna Milanovic is a Dancer, Choreographer, Scientist, Scholar and

Researcher in practice/theory of Dance and Performance, as well as in
Interdisciplinary projects, Human Movement and Technology. Currently
she works part time as a Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University,
MERI and beginning her formal work with the SMARTlab at UEL as a PhD
supervisor and project collaborator. She received her MA in Dance
Studies from the University of Surrey and her Practice-based Ph.D. from the SMARTlab, in
association with the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies, University of East
London.
Dr Katherine Milton
Dr Katherine Milton is the founding director of The Aesthetic

Technologies Lab of Ohio University’s College of Fine Arts – a research
and development facility devoted to assisting working artists in integrating
emerging technologies into fine arts practice. She has been studying
online communities for more than a decade, teaching online since 1996, and has published
on the subjects of leadership online, creative collaborations, and distance education. Her
most recent book focuses on best practices in New Media Tools Design. She claims a variety
of online worlds as her digital outposts, including Norrath (65 Necromancer / EverQuest) and
Azeroth (+60 NightElf Hunter / World of Warcraft.) Her experience in Digital Arts and Culture
is broad and diverse, and includes work as a creative practitioner, a critical theorist, and an
arts administrator. She has worked in print, cd-rom, dvd and web- based delivery platforms
for both k-12 and higher education audiences and served as a consultant and workshop
leader to international agencies such as The British Council Morocco (for her work co-
directing the early stages of the Moroccan Safetynet and Cybercafe Projects with Professor
Goodman for SMARTlab) and with the European Commission (as a collaborator on the
SMARTlab RADICAL project: Research Agendas Developed in Creative Arts Labs).
Dr Gayil Nalls
Dr Gayil Nalls is an interdisciplinary artist, theorist, writer, curator,

filmmaker, and academic who works in the arenas of professional art
practice, science, and academia. Her research has resulted in several
major publications and awards as well as in the creation of many major
sculptural and art exhibitions worldwide. UNESCO made her a Good Will
Ambassador for her work on the World Sensorium Project (distributed as a
scent sculpture for peace at Times Square – New York- at the Millennium Celebrations),
which led in turn to the major practice-based research for her SMARTlab PhD, focusing on
the emergent field of Neuroaesthetics, exploring the connection between botanical scents and
human olfcatory memory. Her unique knowledge of the botanical scent process and of the
role of neuroaesthetics in communications is of tremendous importance to the field of
disability studies.
Prof Dominic Palmer-Brown
Currently Dean, Faculty of Computing, London Metropolitan University His

research covers neural computing methods for data mining, processing
language, and modelling interaction such as in virtual learning
environments. He has supervised 12 PhDs to completion and was the
neural network specialist on a 5 year UN/NERC/DoE funded crops data
analysis project involving 15 countries, 1995-2000. He has also received
funding from JISC, BT Research Labs, KTP and EPSRC Case Studentships. He was Editor
of the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Elsevier Science London in 2001-2, and has
published about 80 papers overall, with some best paper commendations at international
conferences. Invited keynotes have included presentations at the European Simulation
th
Multiconference, 2003; The 10 Int. Conference on Engineering Applications of Neural
Networks, 2007; The WSEAS Int. Conference on Neural Networks, Sofia, 2008; and the
forthcoming 5th IFIP Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications and Innovations, 2009.
Publications include articles in many journals such as IEEE Transactions in Neural Networks,
Neurocomputing, Connection Science, Ecological Modelling and Information Sciences. He is
currently guest editor for a special issue of the journal Neurocomputing.
Dr Allan Parsons
Allan Parsons lives and works in London, where he studied design and
philosophy. He is an academic liaison librarian at the University of
Westminster. He has been an occasional lecturer on the Creative
Practice for Narrative Environments course at Central Saint Martins
College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. As well as
tutoring postgraduate research students, he has worked in recent years
on the delivery of information skills, information literacy and research skills programmes at
such institutions as Royal Holloway, University of London and the University of Westminster.
Prior to that, he spent many years working as a consultant for the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) on its International Futures Programme, researching
and writing about long-term socio-economic and environmental futures. He has also worked
on government-funded, human-technology interaction (HTI) related, research projects with
universities, such as Imperial College, Brunel University and University of the Arts, and large
corporations, such as Arup and British Telecom.
Dr Alexander Pasko
Professor, National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth

University, UK Alexander Pasko graduated from Moscow Engineering
Physics Institute (MEPhI) in Russia in 1983 and received a PhD degree
in 1988. He was a senior researcher at MEPhI from 1988 to 1992; an
assistant professor at the University of Aizu, Japan (from 1993 to 2000);
associate and full professor at the Faculty of Computer and Information
Sciences of the Hosei University in Tokyo, Japan (from 2000 to 2007).
Dr Celia Pearce
Celia Pearce is Associate Professor at SMARTlab, where she took her

PhD in 2005. She is now Director of the Georgia Tech Gamelab, and
Assistant Professor in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture
at Georgia Tech. She has also worked as a researcher and teacher at
University of Southern California and University of California Irvine. She
has over 20 years experience designing interactive games, installations
and attractions, and is the author of the Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive
Revolution (MacMillan 1997).
Will Pearson
Will is an expert in communications for the blind and partially sighted. He

works as a Researcher for both SMARTlab and Futurelab, and is
conducting his PhD at SMARTlab, studying mobile texts stimulating the
auditory imagination. He is currently a researcher and artist/programmer,
working with a range of open source development tools such as
Processing and openFrameworks, and working with clients such as the
Arts Council. In the past Will has worked for NESTA, where he was a core member of the
CEP Technology Working Group. He has a long-standing commitment to inclusive design (for
which he was made a Fellow of the RSA in October 2005). Will has his own creative business
supporting a number of musicians and illustrators. He has also worked as a consultant for
Pixel Lab (www.pixel-lab.co.uk), the UK’s premier consultancy supporting the videogaming
sector, working on the London Games Festival Fringe programme as a project manager.
Dr Marc Price
Dr Marc Price is Senior Engineer/Researcher at BBC R&D, where he

specializes in screen systems for audience empowerment. He is the Co-
PI of the BBC MINDtouch research project with SMARTlab.
Robbie Perry
Robbie Perry is a musician – best known from his band Dead Can Dance-
and music facilitator who creates musical instruments from recycled
materials and technology for use in live and theatrical performances and
the facilitation of creative workshops with children of varying ability
including Down’s Syndrome, Autism and Asperger’s. He Lives in Co
Cavan, Ireland where he is currently working on his PhD for SMARTlab.
The subject of his PhD is how the use of suitably designed musical instruments and
interfaces can aid in the creativity and expression of children with various disabilities by
helping to overcome the physical difficulties and techniques needed that conventional
instruments may present themselves with.
Dr Nithin Rai
Dr Nithin Rai a biophysicist who has steadily shifted from drug

discovery to the maritime sector. He is Director and co-founder of Octoply
Ltd, a health care company developing a novel type of passenger service
on the Thames. At this start-up phase the company is developing a
safety management system that centres around the 3D virtual modelling
of the working environment.
Perparim Rama
Perparim Rama runs 4M architectural studios and has co-designed and

built some of the most impressive community architecture and sustainable
design centres worldwide. He is Adjunct Faculty at SMARTlab, where he
co-supervises PhDs in the area of 3d Generative Architecture &
SMARTbuilding design. He has a degree in Architecture from South Bank
University, a Postgraduate Degree in Architecture from University of East
London and a Masters degree (with Distinction) in Architecture/Computing and Design from
Centre for Evolutionary Computing in Architecture - University of East London.
Dr Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez
Dr Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez is currently a full time researcher in

Technology EnhancedLearning at the Facultad de Informática (Faculty of
Informatics) Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico. He is currently leader of
the Educational Technology Group which focuses on the design,
development and evaluation of technology with educational purposes. Dr
Rebolledo-Mendez carried out PhD studies at the IDEAS Lab, University
of Sussex. His PhD project was entitled "Modelling the Learners Motivational State in a
Vygotskyaninspired ITS" where he investigated the effectiveness of motivational scaffolding in
learning technology. He also holds a BSc in Informatics (Universidad Veracruzana) and MSc
in Human-Centred Computer Systems (University of Sussex). He has also worked as a
Learning Technology Advisor at the University of East London where he currently
cosupervises two PhD students at the SMARTlab. He is currently a visiting research fellow at
various institutes including the IDEASLab (University of Sussex), the Serious Games Institute
(Coventry University) as well as at SMARTlab (University of East London.
Jeremi Sudol
Jeremi Sudol is a computer vision specialist and co-creator of a new

mobile phone that can ‘see for the blind’. He has designed interaction
system, sensors and switches for the SMARTlab TRUST and MINDtouch
projects for the past seven years. He is interested in developing
technologies that celebrate the human spirit, and has been involved in a
variety of projects in active technologies, experimental human-user
interfaces, performing and visual arts, and artificial intelligence. His PhD in progress is based
at UCLA.
Dr Jean-Baptiste Thiebaut
Graduated in both music composition and computer science before

starting a PhD with the Interaction, Media and Communication group at
Queen Mary, University of London. He develops his own programs to
compose music and to study composers practices and is currently
working in collaboration with SMARTlab on a number of creative
technology and performance projects.
Dr Jeb Weisman
Dr Jeb Weisman is Chief Information Officer and of The Center for

Community Health Technology for the Children’s Health Fund, He serves
as the Director of Information Systems and Technology for Community
Pediatric Programs at Montefiore Medical Center and Director of Strategic
Technologies for the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. Dr. Weisman has
overseen the conceptualization, design, and development of three generations of pediatric
and family health primary care electronic health record and allied technology systems to
support pediatric and family healthcare and has received the Davies Community Health
Organization Award. He holds a Ph.D. in anthropology and has served as Assistant Clinical
professor of Socio-medical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia
University, senior research fellow at the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute, University of East
London, and Associate Researcher at The Center for Advanced Technology, New York
University.
Turlif Vilbrandt
Since first touching a keyboard, over 20 years ago, Turlif has been
inseparable from digital processes, programming and technology. He has
a long history working with and developing, various Web technologies,
3D Computer Graphics and Digital Materialization (the accurate and
complete representation of any real or imagined object digitally and/or
the creation of real, tangible, usable instances of these digital objects).He
established one of the first companies to develop and holistically apply function based Solid
Modeling to real world applications using personal computers. Offering this unique technology
and approach has taken Turlif and his company across the globe. His ideas and technology
have been applied to diverse applications over the years, from environmental down hole
drilling to ancient temple reconstructions. In addition to helping create and develop the
emerging field of Digital Materialization, Turlif has made contributions in the areas of digital
historical preservation, virtualized (transparent) learning (educational 3D sims/games), Web
based Content Management Systems, and decentralized, free/open developmental, social,
and legal frameworks. He is the architect, author and co-developer of a variety of software
applications and frameworks. During the last 4 years, in rural Japan and Norway, Turlif
founded and helped establish digital community centers dedicated to IT education and
personalized micro-manufacturing.
He is also an active participant of the Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)
community. In spite of Turlif’s life long infatuation with technology, he believes that the
traditionally pure pursuit of “technology for technology’s sake” is a flawed approach. Turlif
maintains that human and environmental issues will have to be a factor in the future of
technology innovation for successful economic and social development to occur (particularly
in this age of personal digital empowerment). He is developing his own FLOSS licensing to
help address, in part, this issue. Turlif currently sits on the board of directors of several
international organizations including a newly formed non-profit in Japan dedicated to Digital
Materialisation. Turlif came to SMARTlab from the now defunct MIT FabLab Norway where
he was Director of Technology.
Aejaz Zahid
Aejaz Zahid is a biomedical engineer with expertise in Assistive

Technology development and an accomplished DJ/electronic music
producer. Having studied Music & Media Technologies at Trinity College
Dublin, he is currently investigating the use of Assistive Technology in
Music and is involved in the development of new computer based musical
interfaces for composition and live performance that exploit emerging
technologies such as Eye Gaze and Brain Controlled Interaction. He is one of SMARTlab’s 18
NESTA funded Research Fellows.
Associate Artist/Fellows
Di Mainstone, Fashion designer (Wearable technology using sensors)
Trained in fashion design at Central Saint Martins College of Art, London,

Di Mainstone creates interactive couture garments that playfully explore
human behaviour. Investigating the landscapes between wearable
architectures, ad-hoc performance and shared experience, Di has
collaborated with a range of international institutions. These include,
Banff New Media Institute, XS Labs Montreal, V2_, Institute for the
Unstable Media in Rotterdam, Eyebeam in New York City and most recently Queen Mary,
University of London. Di has guest lectured at The Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins
College of Art, NYU, Parsons, Pratt, Willem de Kooning, Emily Carr and Concordia University.
Exhibitions include: SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles, Future Fashion Event in Pisa, Seamless in
Boston, Social Fabrics in Dallas, Re(A)ctor 3 in Liverpool, IMachine in Germany, 5 Days Off
in Amsterdam, Berkeley Art Museum in San Francisco and Kinetica in London.
Stephen Manthorp
Stephen Manthorp is an interactive media producer, working in the field of video games and
digital arts. He used his Fellowship to explore the social and commercial potential of media
technologies.
Tara Mooney
Fashion designer and expert on SMART textiles and conductive fabrics.

Tara designed our SafetyNET garment lines (featured at Siggraph) for two
years running, and has spent the past few years developing new safety
garments and interactive fashion methods and models. She is currently
co-curating an exhibition on fashion and sustainability for the Centre for
Contemporary Art and the Natural World, Exeter, to be opened June
2010, and undertaking an MA in ‘Fashion and the environment’ at the London College of
Fashion. Her work can be viewed here: http://www.sustainable-fashion.com/?page_id=2
Dr Jonathan Milo Taylor
Jonathan Milo Taylor is a London-based musician, artist, academic and

writer whose interests include site responsive installation, interactive
robotics, sound art, multimedia environments, improvisation and
performance. His work has been shown internationally 8 and he
maintains a commitment to interpersonal, intercultural and intermedial
exchange as productive of original and context-specific creative
outcomes. His work has been shown in England (Serpentine Gallery, Bargehouse Gallery,
Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Gallery, 291 Gallery, Sonic Arts Network, Birkbeck College,
University of St. Andrews), Denmark (ICMC 2007, Copenhagen Graduate School), Norway
(OpenForm Festival 2007), Germany (Factory Berlin, Kunstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Bad
Ems (residency)), Morocco, Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia, (Tula Centre for Contemporary Art,
/Moscow Book Arts Fair), Greece (Athens Bienniale 2007), Canada (University of Regina),
South Korea (KAIST, Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) and Mexico
(Prisma Forum, Oaxaca and Mexico City). His PhD project "ImMApp: An Immersive Database
of Sound Art" involves a critical mapping of historical and contemporary sound art.
SMARTlab current PhD students- shortlist:
Camille Baker - Embodied Transference/Transcendence-Performance/Locative Media

Project (BBC sponsored)
Camille Baker is conducting research, funded through our BBC project on

Games for Thought/Somatics and Movement Studies. She joins the team
in this official capacity in Feb. 2006. Also a PhD Candidate with the
SMARTlab, her work overall focused on Networked Performance Media.
Her research interests include: mobile devices, video art, live cinema,
performance and interactive media, responsive environments, media art
installation, telematics, new media curating and networked communities. Baker’s background
ranges from music composition, singing and performance, to Executive Director/Curator of
The Escape Artists Society in Vancouver, Canada, and Lead Curator, Conference Director
and Co-Performance Art Curator for New Forms Festival in Vancouver, to editor-in-chief of an
online pop-culture relationship support magazine – Tales of Slacker Bonding (2000-2003), to
new media and web design /development, to documentary and online video and animation, to
media art instructor, to visual arts curating, to sculpture and modern dance performance. For
more details, papers and articles go to her web portfolio at: http://www.swampgirl67.net/
Erin Beneteau - Eye Control Assistive Technology: Effective Assessment
Erin is a speech language pathologist who has practice din the field of
Augmentative Alternative Communication since first entering graduate
school in 1996. She has practiced in a variety of settings in the US, New
Zealand, and Ireland. She currently works for Tobii Technology, as a
trainer in using eye control and other forms of assistive technology. Her
previous research has involved: cultural and linguistic diversity, AAC
practices, and assistive technology access methods.
Katiushka Borges - Exploring Intimacy, language and behaviour via Neuro-Linguistic
Programming (NLP) and interactive game formats, to enhance

communication in relationships. (Multiplatform: interactive TV/publication).
Katiushka Borges is a communications specialist, focusing on verbal
(tonality – effective use of keywords), non-verbal language (gestures-body
language), and analysis of behavioural patterns towards building trust.
She holds an MA in Interactive Multimedia from The London College of
Communication where she successfully developed an interactive game to develop intimacy,
using visual, auditory, kinesthetic and auditory visual representational systems that enhanced
communication in relationships. She brings a broad range of knowledge and expertise from
TV, Radio, Journalism and Advertising industries; and most recently, from the corporate
environment where she has worked with the Business Intelligence Unit (oil industry) and for a
big IT and Management Consultancy, where she currently advises and trains on developing
relationships at senior level through the creation of her own method of producing strategic
personality profiles. She is a published author, executive coach, internationally certified
Master Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner and Neuro- Hypnotic Repatterning Trainer.
Toby Borland - Emergent behaviour in consumer-driven rapid manufacture
Toby Borland has worked with SMARTlab as an artist-technologist

dedicated to the real world applications of technology, since 2005. He
joined the team in an official capacity at our London base in February
2007, as MAGICbox Manager. For several years he worked part-time in
facilitating sculpture projects within addiction rehabilitation centres, part-
time developing mini-foundry techniques, and part-time developing
Computer Aided Manufacturing interfaces in relation to artistic/sculpture projects. He is
currently finishing an implementation of an analemmic equatorial sundial. He now finds
himself in the uncharted territory somewhere between art and engineering. He has a
cantankerous old Z650 motorcycle and no television.
Bobby Byrne - Disability, Dance and the Judson Dance Theatre: Alternate Virtuosities
Bobby Byrne came late to dance via a background in martial arts.

Essentially a dilettante, his formal training amount to only one year, Bobby
has drifted slowly into dance as a profession through working with Dublin
based integrated dance company Counterbalance over the previous 13
years. He is currently working on a Thesis under the aegis of SMARTlab,
investigating the relevance of the Judson dance theatre to models of
integrated dance practice through constructing vocabularies based upon the bodies’
affordances.
Clilly Castiglia - Manufacturing Private and Public Memories
Clilly Castiglia was the Senior Vice President and Cofounder of

Technology Developers LLC in New York City. Her role was to oversee
the Design and Production of new technology and experience based
projects for clients such as Yahoo, Old NAVY/GAP, Unilever, Papalote
Children’s Museum. Prior to that she was the Director of Operations at
The NYU Centre for Advanced Technology/NYU Media Research Lab.
There she managed the development of technologies in collaborative tools and environments,
new interfaces and input methods for wireless and handheld devices, tangible media, high-
end graphics and real-time animation.
Steve Cooney - Solar Notation of Melody and Rhythm, and Solar Calculation of Pentatonic
Modes, Diatonic Modes and Harmony: developing a model of effective teaching practice
Steve has been a professional musician for forty years, firstly in Australia
where he was born and then for the last thirty years in Ireland, where he is
respected as a specialist in Gaelic music. He has accompanied many of
the finest international singers and and instrumentalists in diverse genres,
and his style of accompaniment of Irish music has been widely copied. He
has played on or produced more than 100 CD¹s, both commercial and
educational, and for the last number of years has accompanied Sinéad O¹Connor. He
underwent Aboriginal initiation in the Northern Territory of Australia in the 1970¹s and this
remains his guiding philosophy. He has invented a unique geometric method of simplifying
and explaining music theory which he has tested for twenty years. This is the subject of his
PhD at SMARTlab, and he believes it can be a new international best-practice model for early
learning of music.
Bruce Damer - The EvoGrid
Bruce Damer wears many hats, one as a pioneer of the virtual worlds
medium, having helped to develop early "avatar" virtual spaces and
communities, another as an expert on the history of computing, in his 9
Digibarn Computer Museum in Northern California, and yet another as a
designer and simulation team leader for NASA, modeling current and
future space missions. In 1996 he established Biota.org, a non-profit
organization which created a series of interdisciplinary conferences, one held at the famous
Burgess Shale fossil site in Canada, and another hosted in Cambridge UK by Richard
Dawkins and Douglas Adams. Biota.org blends the worlds of computer science, paleontology,
speculative fiction and the arts, to create new perspectives on life's origins and future. Bruce
is currently working toward his PhD through the SMARTlab at the University of East London
on another outgrowth of Biota.org and virtual worlds: the EvoGrid. More on Bruce’s work and
organizations at http://www.damer.com
Denise Doyle - Towards a Poetics of Technology Mediated Narrative Forms: Wandering

Fictions v.3.0
An aspect of Denise Doyle’s PhD research is investigating the potential of

emerging technologies to extend creative practice, and in particular the
use of virtual worlds as a new platform, or new realm, for practice based
research. In particular, her interest lies in the experience of our
imagination when space is experienced as mediated through technology.
Definitions of what we mean by, and experience as real or actual,
imagined or physical, are questioned in these new spaces such as those experienced on the
Second Life platform, developed and launched by Linden Labs in 2003. Through early texts
written by Gaston Bachelard on theories of the material and dynamic imagination found in
Water and Dreams (1942) and Air and Dreams (1943), and later, to those of Katherine Hayles
in How we became Post-human (1999) and Elizabeth Grosz in Architecture from the Outside
(2001), Denise aims to contribute a new theory of the imagination in light of the existence of
mediated spaces in virtual worlds.
David Dunkley-Gyimah - The Outernet
David Dunkley Gyimah is the recipient of International awards in video

journalism and media (broadcast/new media) design with more than 20
years in the media working for the BBC, Channel 4 News and ABC News
in front and behind the camera. Described by Apple as “a one man
hurricane”, he has lectured worldwide in media culture convergence. An
applied chemistry grad with a post grad in journalism and further studies
in International Relations at the LSE, David is interested in exploring new instincts in evolving
media, news and art and is an artist-in-residence at the South Bank. David is currently a
senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, a director of the Broadcast Journalism
Training Council, and a 2009 juror for the prestigious RTS. He publishes viewmagazine.tv
and is an avid blogger and twitter @viewmagazine. David is researching The Aesthetics of
Video journalism and the Outernet at SMARTlab. David Dunkley Gyimah has been chosen as
an artist in residence at the South Bank Centre where he'll be producing a number of cross
platform pieces for the web and outernet as well as collaborating with various artists he’s just
returned from Beirut and is due to travel to south Africa as heading up an international team
looking at advancing video story techniques Pieces he's working on so far include
conversations – how leaders lead and a video blog based on chaos theory. You can see
examples of David’s work on his site www.viewmagazine.tv
Ron Edwards - Mobile Virtual Worlds
Ron Edwards is the Co-founder and CEO of Ambient Performance, a UK

based firm specializing in 3D mobile and virtual world applications.
Ambient is the European distributor and service provider for Forterra
Systems OLIVE virtual world platform. Ron is a pioneer and thought
leader in helping organizations apply emerging technologies for better
communication, collaboration and training with over 17 years experience.
He is especially excited about the nascent metaverse and is developing projects in the core
metaverse areas of mobile augmented reality, virtual worlds, mirror worlds and mobile
lifelogging for a variety of clients in industry, government, consumer brands and education.
Ron is from Seattle, lives in London, is a SMARTlab PhD student at University of East
London, researching collaboration in the mobile metaverse and blogs @
http://ambientperformance.com/connection.
Zann Gill - INNOVATION NETWORKS: problem-mapping, decision support & collaborative

problem-solving
Zann Gill (M. Arch. Harvard) started her career as a researcher for
Buckminster Fuller. Early interest in Fuller's concepts for "World Game" to
achieve environmental sustainability and 'design science' sparked her
focus on cross-disciplinary innovation. Her entry to the international
competition Kawasaki: Information City of the 21st Century, sponsored by
the Japan Association for Planning Administration and Mainichi
Newspapers, with cooperation of ten ministries and three agencies of the Japanese
government, tied with Matsushita Corp. for first place and won the Award of the Mayor of
Kawasaki. She proposed a networked system of sixteen initiatives - a framework comprised
of diverse interlinked components for urban innovation as a complex adaptive system. More
recently at NASA she developed program plans for an Institute for Advanced Space Concepts
(IASC), a think tank BEACON and NASA University. She founded DESYN lab
(http://desyn.com) to apply her method to "raise collaborative IQ" (http://www.desyn.com/c-
iq.html and http://www.zanngill.com/3ciq.html) and is currently working with Australia's ICT
Center of Excellence (NICTA) on a - smart systems - eco-cities - initiative. More at
http://zanngill.com.
Halina Gottlieb - Designing IT-Artifacts for an Enhanced Museum Experience
Halina Gottlieb is an art historian and multimedia producer. As project

manager she has taken part in the development of several prototypes
pertaining to the interpretation of objects at art galleries. Furthermore she
has assisted as concept developer for exhibitions at several museums in
Sweden. She is also curator for the Interactive Salon, a show room for
technologies that promote and preserve cultural heritage. In 2002, Halina
founded the conference/award forum Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums and Heritage
Sites (NODEM). At the University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre in
Stockholm she organized and was head lecturer of a course entitled Exhibitions & New
Media. Halina is currently a board member of the Executive Committee at EPOCH. In 2006
she became director of Digital Cultural Heritage Centre of Expertise at The Interactive
Institute in Stockholm. From 2006 she is a PhD candidate at UEL (London) on the topic of
Designing Digital Cultural Heritage.
Ian Grant - Expressivity and the Mechanical, Digital and Virtual Object in Games, Art and
Performance
Ian Grant is Head of School, Art and Design (Acting) at Thames Valley
University, as well as a prolific computer programmer and a digital
creative working across performance, puppetry, installations and real-
time computer graphics. He programmes web, iphone and mac software
specialising in graphics and media applications. You can read his blog at
daisyrust.com. His latest work involves making systems to expressively
control virtual and mechanical objects in ways akin to traditions from world puppetry. Prior to
managing a School of Art and Design, Ian was a senior lecturer in Digital Arts at TVU, and
lecturer in Modern Drama Studies at Brunel University, UK. He has a secret ambition to play
piano and sing jazz vocals in bars, which, in recent times, he has fulfilled at the Old Vic
Theatre, London. Research and Teaching Interests History of Computer Art; Virtual Reality;
Real-Time 3D Graphics and Processing; Applied Visual Effects; Digital Puppetry and
Animation; Live and Digital Performance; Narrative and Games; Creative Social Networks;
Web Design and Development; Applied Creative Technologies (in Community Settings);
Futurology, Internet and Digital Culture; e- Learning and Virtual Learning Environments;
Problem Based Learning; Critical Theory; Improvisation; Applied Theatre in the Community,
including: Education, Prison and Health Settings; Documenting Performance;
Wanda Gregory The Future of Chick Lit: a study of girls, games, virtual worlds and learning
environments
Wanda Gregory has worked in the kids entertainment industry for the past
15 years. She started out in traditional media working at The Seattle
Times where she created and launched their first freestanding publication
for high school students called the Mirror. She moved into interactive
media first at Sierra Online as an associate producer on their edutainment
titles and then as Senior Director of Online Media for both Wizards of the
Coast and Hasbro Inc toy and game properties. Later Wanda joined the Xbox Live team as
group product manager for Xbox.com. She then decided to work on a girl property so joined
Hidden City Games as executive producer interactive entertainment. Most recently she was
the Vice President/Executive Producer for Flowplay overseeing the development of an MMO
for tweens/teens.
Wanda is a lecturer in Science and Technology at the University of Washington Bothell

campus where she teaches classes on game design, online communities, interactive media,
virtual worlds and games for girls on both Seattle and Bothell campuses. She is also an
Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Tasmania, Australia where she teaches
classes in conjunction with the HitLab on game design. Wanda is a graduate of the University
of Washington where she received her BA in English Literature, MBA and MA in
Communications. She is currently working on her PhD at the SMARTlab at UEL in London.
Naser Karmani - Telematic Video En Scene: Live Video & Live Bodies Performance in
Reflexive Structure
Educated up to high school in Kuwait. In 1990 he finished his bachelor

degree in chemical engineering from Tuskygee University – Alabama,
USA. He obtained his Master degree in independent cinema in 2003 from
Solent Southampton University, UK. Artistic Experience: He obtained
experience as actor with most of Kuwait Theater groups and participated
in several festivals. He also playwrights and directs theatre, TV and video
works. He won the 2008 “State of Kuwait Art Encouragement Prize” as best theatre director
for his performance “The Censored Laundry” which obtain the best theatre performance in
Kuwait Theatre Festival. PhD with SMARTlab: Welcomed aboard in February 2009. His
practice-based research looks to present a practical video performance with a critical written
thesis which investigate the elements and characteristics of new video forms that co-perform
with live body performance; and to explore the visual language of these new hybrid forms of
moving image practices.
Jim Keravala - The Evolution and Effect of Upcoming Human Computer Interactive
Technologies
Jim is a satellite engineer and computer design expert who runs a

successful Silicone Graphics company to develop and promote his new
design interface, FLAI.
Taey Kim - Virtual Nomads: translation on the transit
Taey is an digital media artist / digital culture researcher who is using

narrative visual elements within multimedia based installations. She has
been invited to show her work at a number of exhibitions and screenings
internationally. She has been nominated for best creative player in the
Blackberry Women & Technology Awards (2008, UK) and won at the
Europrix Multimedia Awards (2008, Austria). Taey started as an award
winning digital storyteller (Best Contents in International Digital Arts Festival, 2000, Korea), as
a hypertext writer, and developed her skills in the MA Interactive Multimedia programme
(University of Arts London) to develop computer languages within multimedia platforms. Her
research builds on the analysis of dialogue as a social research method and the critical
analysis of literature and visual art-works, demonstrating the interconnection between
artworks and artist’s lives.
Petra Klusmeyer - Sound Arts in the Expanded Field
Petra Klusmeyer, digital media and sound artist, is currently a Teaching

Researcher of Sound Studies at the University of the Arts, Bremen. She
has completed a Master of Fine Arts in Time Arts at The School of the Art
Institute of Chicago in 1999. Her work creates an architecture of sound
and image associations. Sonic glitches and fragments are reorganized
into a sounding detritus of culture. As post-graduate student with
SMARTlab, University of East London, she conducts research in the area of Sound Arts in the
Expanded Field. Her work has been internationally performed and exhibited such as in 2008
Not Berlin and Not Shanghai, Guangxi Arts Institute Nanning, China; 2006, Dislocate,
Trampoline, Tokyo; 2006 Terra Cognita, Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen; 2002, Creation
in Movement, Canard Galeria Central, Mexico City; 2002, Music in Me, GAK Bremen; 2001,
x-tract: Chicago Sounds, Podewil Berlin; 1999, Groove, Pit &Wave, ZKM Karlsruhe. She has
been the recipient of numerous grants and awards such as The Joan Mitchell Foundation
Stipend, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago Trustee Scholarship and the 2000 John
Quincy Adams Fellowship. Her sound works are published on Staalplaat, Boxmedia und
Experimental Sound Studio Chicago.
Celine Llewellyn-Jones - How physical gaming, play and adventure can be integrated with
online learning environments for adult learning, to create enchanted, engaging and social
learning spaces and a greater sense of learning agency.
Celine is a Researcher and Learning Technologist at SMARTlab and

London Metropolitan University, an Associate Researcher for Futurelab
and a freelance mobile and location-based game and experience designer.
She has an MA in Fine Art, an MA in Electronic Arts, an HEA teaching
and learning accreditation and is currently working towards a PhD
investigating the role of digitally augmented bodies in learning.
Anita McKeown - Local Mediated Mappings of Performance Intervention Strategies
Anita McKeown’s role at SMARTlab is within Project Development –

Partnership and Participation. She is an interdisciplinary artist, producer
and researcher working in the public domain, exploring the potential of
open-source software to transform space to place. In 2004 she won the
prestigious Bravo Award, the only non U.S. citizen to do so for a digital
public art project in Memphis, TN, and her work continues to be exhibited
and performed nationally and internationally. In 2008, she was elected by invitation to the
Royal Society of Arts. She is Co-founder and Creative Director of Arts Services Un-
incorporated (ASU) a not for- profit community arts organisation established in 2006, and
based in South East London. Since 1998 she has worked for a number of organisations
within the arts e.g. Lewisham Youth theatre, Razor Edge Theatre Company, Music in Prisons,
Heart N Soul Theatre Company, utilising her extensive experience of project development
and management.
Kasia Molga - Wondering Between Paint and Digital Data – Concepts of Sublime, Divine
and Beautiful in Visual Fine and Digital Art Practice In the Hyperlinked World
Kasia Molga is a practicing interdisciplinary artist, living and working in

London. She studied Fine Arts and Animation in Academy of Fine Art in
Poznan (MFA), Poland and Interdisciplinary Design in Central Saint
Martin College of Arts and Design in London (MA), UK. She also studied
film and video in the latter college (1998). Her practice combines
traditional media such as painting, drawing and traditional animation with
cutting edge digital interactive and mobile media. Through her pieces she questions viewer’s
attitude towards conventions of understanding what art is, while introducing new way of
experience using modern technologies. Quite often she takes accepted definitions of various
art forms step further, pushing boundaries of expression and perception of work of art. Her
visual work mainly explores notion of Interconnectedness as ephemeral compassionate
bonds among people entwined with the Universe. Since Kasia’s first exhibition in Poland in
1992, she has exhibited her work worldwide. She presented her work in a number of
galleries, venues and festivals, among them: ICA (UK), BBC British Film Festival (UK),
Design Mai Festival (Berlin), Contemporary Arts Space Osaka (CASO) in Japan and OXO
Tower (UK). She also was nominated to number of awards and stipends, among them
DMA’05 awards for her contribution to promote music through her website design work.
She is commissioned on regular basis and her multimedia pieces supported events such as
London Fashion Week (London) and Creative Links (London). Currently Kasia runs her own
studio which is a platform for her both commercial and non-commercial projects as well as
dynamic space for sharing experiences, ideas and work with other artists all over the world.
She is a PhD candidate at SMARTlab (University of East London) where she focuses on the
issue of personal human presence in context new digital and communication mobile
technology. Prior to that Kasia was a lecturer in University of Greenwich, where she run three
workshops: animation, digital design and net art. She has also taught in Westminster College.
Nigel Newbutt - How can Facial Motion Capture be used effectively in Virtual Environments
to help Improve Learning in people with Social Learning Difficulties?
Nigel is a Senior Lecturer in the department of CMS (Computing and

Mathematical Sciences), at the University of Greenwich. He gained his
first degree at Leeds Metropolitan University in 2001, in Multimedia
Technology, and has since completed his Masters at the University of
Greenwich in Higher Education. His teaching currently involves Digital
Media Production, 3D Animation and Advanced Animation and Motion
Capture courses, as well as Programme Leading BSc (Hons.) Digital Animation and
Production. Nigel is also researching and interested in virtual environments and how these
can be used to aid learning. This coupled with an interest and expertise using facial motion
capture, are all reasons for developing research (PhD) aimed at improved communication for
children with autism. Nigel is also a reviewer and fellow of the HEA (Higher Education
Academy), a member of a SIG for Podcasting, presented research internationally and an
elected member of Academic Council at University of Greenwich.
Cathy O’Kennedy - The Divine Normal……. dancing with ‘real’ people across the boundaries
of professional and community dance practice for mixed ability choreographers and movers.
Cathy O’Kennedy is an Irish dance artist and choreographer with over

three decades of experience of teaching, performing and creating dance
in community and education settings in Ireland. She is currently the
creative director of Counterbalance Integrated Dance Group and is the
Artistic Director and choreographer for Fluxusdance.
Will Pearson - Digital Comics & Interface Design for (Dis)Ability
Will Pearson is a doctoral student at SMARTlab, part of the University of

East London, where he studies mobile texts stimulating the auditory
imagination. He is currently an Associate Researcher with Futurelab,
media artist using Processing and openFrameworks, and researches
interaction architecture. Previously, he has lectured in games design and
object orientated college and been Director of an Arts Council England
Thrive project looking at cultural infrastructure in context of regeneration and population
growth. Between 2004-6, he worked for NESTA, where he was a core member of the CEP
Technology Working Group. He has a long standing commitment to inclusive design, has his
own online collective Sevenspiral dedicated to supporting a number of musicians and
illustrators. He also consults for Pixel Lab, the UK’s premier consultancy supporting the
videogaming sector, working on the London Games Festival Fringe programme as a project
manager. Sevenspiral was a BBC Innovation Labs finalist in the March 07 lab. In April 07, he
successfully pitched for a client (Cardiff School of Art and Design) at the Content 360
competition (MIP) in Cannes; he’s a consultant on their mobile development project,
Reacticles Global, a co-development project with the National Film Board of Canada.
Robbie Perry - Music and the Cognitive Process: Stimulus and Effects on the Mind and Body
Robbie Perry is a musician and music facilitator who creates musical

instruments from recycled materials and technology for use in live and
theatrical performances and the facilitation of creative workshops with
children of varying ability including Down's Syndrome, Autism and
Asperger's. He Lives in Co Cavan, Ireland where he is currently working
on his PhD with UEL's SMARTlab. The subject of his PhD is how the use
of suitably designed musical instruments and interfaces can aid in the creativity and
expression of children with various disabilities by helping to overcome the physical difficulties
and techniques needed that conventional instruments may present themselves with.
Perparim Rama - Minimal Path Systems and Optimisation Techniques in Architecture,

Urbanism and Community Development
Rama is a founding director of 4M Group. He has the overall

responsibility for the management and development matters within the
Group. He has been involved in various large scheme developments
including his duties as a London team project leader on ENK Complex
Mixed Use development in Prishtina and as a specialist consultant for
developing Smart Solutions for Spatial Planning and Architecture for
Newham Council and Tower Hamlets. He has over ten years experience on a range of
projects in residential, commercial, hotels, mixed use developments and master planning
within UK and internationally. Having worked and traveled extensively in different countries
over the years, collaborating on large scheme projects, he has developed an entrepreneurial
flair and creative thinking to design new enterprises. Rama has teaching experience as a unit
tutor at Nottingham University School of architecture, he is also a visiting tutor/critic at UEL on
Degree, Diploma and MSc, and as visiting critic at the Architectural Association. He
conducted extensive research on spontaneous settlements and self organisation and is an
expert in Generative Architecture and Smart Buildings. He is a member of Centre for
Evolutionary Computing in Architecture and is continuing his research as a PHD student at
SMARTlab Digital Media Institute.
Sapna Ramnani - Gaining Independence in Documentary Production through Assistive
Technology: On-camera Interview Techniques Developed by, with and for People with
Complex Disability’
Sapna Ramnani, an independent documentary film-maker since 2000,

has Cerebral Palsy, effecting motor functions. Being a wheelchair user
with speech impairment impacts on the way she produces documentaries.
Sapna's current method of work when interviewing on location is to train
another person to ask questions on-camera under her supervision.
Interviews appear formal and structured, not allowing Sapna, the film-
maker, to spontaneously ask questions, or to make the interview informal and conversational
while developing a relationship with interviewees. Sapna will adapt conventional ways of
interviewing on camera to make it possible for film makers with speech and communication
impairments to take a more journalistic and spontaneous approach to documentary
production with the physical limitations of film makers like herself in mind. This unique
approach to documentary production will create possibilities for new ways of presenting
information and issues to audiences. This study will explore how film makers with complex
disabilities and communication impairments are able to produce documentaries
independently and how technology and conventional interview techniques can be adapted to
make this process easier.
Dan Sutch - Supporting the development of health and wellbeing in young people
Through the use of mobile, immersive technologies Dan’s an educational

researcher at Futurelab (www.futurelab.org.uk), where he investigates
the role of digital technologies for learning. In particular he’s interested in
mobile learning, the role of the teacher in technology-rich learning
environments and values-driven assessment (how we can make visible
and celebrate the things we value in education). Dan is a PhD student at
SMARTlab, looking at how a highly mobile, wearable, phatic and immersive digital technology
called a Fizzee can encourage young people to be more physically active. This study is
looking at the extent to which young people develop an emotional relationship with their
Fizzee and build on this to change their activity behaviours. When not working, Dan’s
normally found surfing in North Devon or traveling very slowly to the beach in his 1964 VW
camper van.
Turlif Vilbrandt - Digital Materialisation
Since first touching a keyboard, over 20 years ago, Turlif has been
inseparable from digital processes, programming and technology. He has
a long history working with and developing, various Web technologies,
3D Computer Graphics and Digital Materialization (the accurate and
complete representation of any real or imagined object digitally and/or
the creation of real, tangible, usable instances of these digital objects).
Turlif established one of the first companies to develop and holistically apply function based
Solid Modeling to real world applications using personal computers. Offering this unique
technology and approach has taken Turlif and his company across the globe. His ideas and
technology have been applied to diverse applications over the years, from environmental
down hole drilling to ancient temple reconstructions. In addition to helping create and develop
the emerging field of Digital Materialization, Turlif has made contributions in the areas of
digital historical preservation, virtualized (transparent) learning (educational 3D sims/games),
Web based Content Management Systems, and decentralized, free/open developmental,
social, and legal frameworks. He is the architect, author and co-developer of a variety of
software applications and frameworks. During the last 4 years, in rural Japan and Norway,
Turlif founded and helped establish digital community centers dedicated to IT education and
personalized micro-manufacturing. He is also an active participant of the Free, Libre and
Open Source Software (FLOSS) community. In spite of Turlif’s life long infatuation with
technology, he believes that the traditionally pure pursuit of “technology for technology’s
sake”, is a flawed approach. Turlif maintains that human and environmental issues will have
to be a factor in the future of technology innovation for successful economic and social
development to occur (particularly in this age of personal digital empowerment). He is
developing his own FLOSS licensing to help address, in part, this issue. Turlif currently sits on
the board of directors of several international organizations including a newly formed non-
profit in Japan dedicated to Digital Materialization. Turlif comes to the PeopleLab from MIT
FabLab Norway where he is Director of Technology.
Alison Williams - Architectural Spaces & New Modes of Experience Design
Alison Williams BA (Hons.) Fine Art (Sculpture) Reading University

Research topic Following fifteen years of professional work with creativity
in the workplace, particularly the impact of physical space on that
creativity, her SMARTlab research is: ‘The impact of physical space on
people’s ability to be creative at work.’ She is seeking to identify and
codify the elements of physical press (or environment) at work that afford
the potential for small-c creative behaviour in the workplace; and is aiming to develop a
syntax of creativity based on these codified elements. The syntax of creativity will, it is hoped,
provide a framework for designing physical press in the workplace that actively supports the
widest possible range of creative approaches by the workforce. Her core field is creativity
research, and my contingent fields are architectural psychology, environmental psychology
and innovation management.
Index of completed SMARTlab Practice-based PhD students
with details of their supervisory teams
1. Amrani Zerrifi, Fatima

Current post: Senior Lecturer, University of Fes
PhD title: Stripping Off the Veil
Institution: Open University; transferred for completion with the University of Surrey
Enrolment: part-time British Council funded
Submission: 2001
Details of supervisors: Professor Lizbeth Goodman (OU & Surrey)
Professor Fatima Sadiqi, local supervisor Fes Morocco
Exam team: Professor (internal) & (external)
2. Birch, Anna
Current post: MA Performance Leader, University of Surrey
PhD title: Staging and citing gendered meanings: a practice-based study of representational
strategies in live and mediated performance
Institution: University of Surrey; transferred to SMARTlab, Central Saint Martins, University of
The Arts
Enrolment: part-time
Submission: 2004
Details of supervisors: Professor Lizbeth Goodman (Surrey &SMARTlab/CSM), Dr Radan
Martinec
Exam team: Professor Tina Keane (internal) & Professor Leslie Ferris (external)
3. Bowen, Eleanor
Current post: Freelance practitioner/arts facilitator
PhD title: Drawing and Becoming Otherwise, the Archaeology of a Linear Practice
Institution: Wimbledon College of Art & Design, London
Enrolment: full-time
Submission: July 2005
Details of supervisors: Professor Rod Bugg (Wimbledon); John Stezaker (RCA), Professor
Lizbeth Goodman (external co-supervisor)
Exam team: Anita Taylor (Wimbledon) & Yve Lomax (RCA)
4. Bread, Ryya
Current post: SMARTlab Adjunct Researcher/PhD supervisor
PhD title: METHODOLOGICAL EMBODIMENTS :: Psychical Corporeal Performances of
Subjective Specific Auto[erotic]-Representation(s)
Institution: Falmouth College of Art (validated by University of Plymouth)
Enrolment: Full time Research Studentship from Falmouth College of Art (1997 - 2000)
Submission: July 2001
Details of supervisors: Director of Studies- Professor Penny Florence
Supervisors: Professor Rob Bugg (external supervisor),
Professor Lizbeth Goodman (external co-supervisor)
Exam team: Professor Professor Edward Cowie (in ternal) & Professor Marsha Meskimmon
(external)
5. De Gay, Jane
Current post: Senior Lecturer, Leeds University
Institution: Open University
Details of supervisors: Professor Lizbeth Goodman
Exam team: Dr Richard Allen (internal) (external)
6. Diamond, Sara
Current post: Principal, Ontario College of Art & Design
PhD title: A Tool for Collaborative Online Dialogue: CodeZebraOS
Institution: SMARTlab, UEL (transferred in with advanced standing from Central Saint
Martins)
Submission: Awarded August 2009
Details of supervisors: Professor Lizbeth Goodman (DOS), Dr Sher Doruff, Dr Haris
Mouratidis
Exam team: Prof Haim Bresheeth, Prof Dominic Palmer-Brown, Prof Diana Domingues
7. Dorosh, Daria
Current post: Professor, Fashion Institute of Technology New York
PhD title: Patterning: The Informatics of Art and Fashion
Institution: SMARTlab, UEL (transferred from Central Saint Martins)
Submission: Awarded June 2008
Details of supervisors: Professor Lizbeth Goodman (Surrey &SMARTlab/CSM)
Dr Radan Martinec (CSM)
Philippa Beale (UEL)
Dr Patrick Fuery (UEL)
8. Doruff, Sher
Current post: Mentor/Lecturer/ Amsterdam School for the Arts; Research Fellow, ARTI
Lectoraat
(Theory and Practice in Artistic Research) Lecturer, University of Amsterdam
(Masters of Artistic Research); Adjunct Faculty, SMARTlab, UEL
PhD title: The Translocal Event and the Polyrhythmic Diagram
Institution: SMARTlab, Central Saint Martins
Submission: 2006/ PhD completed 2006
Details of supervisors: Professor Lizbeth Goodman (DOS)
James Swinson (CSM), Sally Jane Norman (Uni Sussex)
Exam team: (internal) & Professor Brain Massumi (external)
9. Flanagan, Mary
PhD title: Playculture: developing a feminist game design
Current post- Esteemed Professor, Darmouth University
Director of Studies at Central Saint Martins: Dr Lizbeth Goodman
Co-supervisors: Patricia Austin, Dr Radan Martinec
10. Gilson-Ellis, Jools

PhD Title: The Feminine/Oral in Contemporary Art Practice
Enrolment date at Dartington: 1994 (part-time) Transfer to Surrey 1998
Completion: Summer 2000
Viva: Wednesday 6th September 2000
Director of Studies at Surrey: Dr Lizbeth Goodman
Exam Team: Professor Janet Lansdale (chair), Dr Anna McMullen (Trinity College Drama
Dept) external and Dr Penny Florence (Falmouth College of Art) second
external.
11. Graiouid, Said

PhD title: Communication and Everyday Performance in Morocco
Institution: University of Surrey
Submission: 2000
Details of supervisors: Dr. Lizbeth Goodman, Dr. Taib Belghazi
12. Hales, Chris

Current Post: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Interactive Film, SMARTlab (0.2)
PhD Title: RETHINKING THE INTERACTIVE MOVIE: A practical investigation demonstrating
original and engaging ways of creating and combining ‘live action’ video segments
under audience and/or computer control
Institution: University of Surrey, Central St Martins College of Art, SMARTlab UEL
Submission: August 2006
Supervisors: Prof. Lizbeth Goodman, James Swinson (Central St Martins)
Externals: Heide Hägebölling and Haim Breesheth
13. Kueppers, Petra

Director of Studies, Dr Lizbeth Goodman
14. Merriman, Vic

Director of Studies, Dr Lizbeth Goodman
15. Milanovic, Vesna

PhD title: Re-embodying the alienation of exile: feminist subjectivity, spectatorship, politics &
Performance
SMARTlab at UEL
Submission: 2006
Director of Studies, Prof Lizbeth Goodman; Co-supervisor: Prof Patrick Fuery
16. Morie, Jacquelyn Ford Morie
Current post: Head of ICT and Digital Futures, the Institute for Creative Arts, USC
PhD Title: Meaning and Emplacement in Expressive Virtual Environments
SMARTlab at UEL
PhD Awarded: April 2008
Director of Studies: Prof Lizbeth Goodman
17. Nalls, Gayil

PhD title: World Sensorium: Theory, Practice and Significance of the World Social Olfactory
Sculpture
SMARTlab at UEL
PhD Awarded: April 2008
18. Nigten, Anna

current post: Director of the V2 Lab for Unstable Media, Rotterdam
PhD title: Processpatching; defining new methods in R&D
Submission: 2006
Details of supervisors: Dr. Lizbeth Goodman, Dr. James Swinson
19. Paris, Helen

PhD title: Visceral/Virtual Performance
current post: Reader in Performance, Brunel University
PhD, The University of Surrey
Submission: 2000
20. Pearce, Celia

Current post: Asst. Professor of Digital Media, Georgia Tech
PhD title: Playing ethnography: a study of emergent behaviour in online games and virtual
worlds
current post- Head of Gamelab, Georgia Institute of Technology
Enrolment: full-time tenure-track professor
Submission: Completed July 2006
Details of supervisors: DOS-Dr Lizbeth Goodman;
Supervisors- Dr Hayley Newman, Patricia Austin
Exam team: Internal-; External- Professor Dominic Palmer-Brown
21. Prendergast, Jane Margaret

PhD title: Mapping Feminism in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Institution: Murdoch University
Submission: 1999
22. Tomlins, Claire

PhD title: The UK Corporate Identity-Image Interface Design Constraints and Enablers
Institution: University of The Arts, London
Submission: 2008
23. Wilkie, Fiona
24. Vogelsang, Axel

PhD title: Hyper-Image Network: An investigation into the role of text and image in the design
of hypertext networks with specific consideration of the World Wide Web
Further completions: Sue Bonnet, Joan Forbes, Tracy Martin, Jan Goulden, Mourad Mkinsi,
Abdellatif, Hakim, Eleanor Marguiles, Zoe Akamiataki
Research Clusters & a Shortlist of Relevant Current Projects:
Research Cluster 1:
Multimodal Interfaces and Assistive Technologies for User Empowerments
Current projects of this group:
o TRUST (Open & Multimodal Interfaces, including the Activechair)
Group Leaders: Prof. Lizbeth Goodman (Project Director), Dr Brian Duffy (Haptics/Robotics
Director)
Co-PIs: Dr Marc Price (screen systems), Jeremi Sudol (sensor systems)
Team: Jana Riedel, Kate Brehm, Tahmina Parvin, Clilly Castiglia
The Trust project is an immersive game and healing environment for young people, with and
without disabilities, in and out of hospital. It aims to empower kids to move freely in
imaginative worlds, even if they can not leave their beds or wheelchairs. The project began
with SMARTlab and has been produced locally in New York, Dublin, Singapore, and now
back in London at the Stephen Hawking School.
The work on Trust and its associated multimodal interfaces taking place in the PLAYroom is
informed by SMARTlab’s long term close partnership with the robotics & haptics engineers of
the Open Interfaces Team (led by Dr Brian Duffy at MLE, Dublin) and previously, also in
collaboration with research teams at MLE, NYU, NTU et al. SMARTlab is delighted to host the
new iterations of this work in the PLAYroom at UEL. SMARTlab works directly with
communities (children in special schools and hospitals) and creates new stories and
animated game worlds with accompanying educational materials, whilst Brian Duffy continues
his work with us, designing and constructing bespoke haptic chair environments, with Jeremi
Sudol et al creating new sensor tools, and Marc Price working on screenic integration of
accessible packages for immersive play.
o InterFACES: tools for non-verbal languages for social interaction and
communication
Group Leaders: Dr Mick Donegan (eyetracking expert), Professor Lizbeth Goodman

(Educational and Performance/Communications Technology expert), Professor Dominic
Palmer-Brown (Neural Networks and Data Pattern/Analysis expert)
Work underway includes the next iteration of the InterFACES project, co-directed by
Professor Goodman with Dr Mick Donegan, joining the team from the Oxford ACE Centre,
where he has pushed the boundaries of eye-tracking technologies for assistive tech and user
empowerment.
The team as a whole now includes Professors and associate researchers, along with a group
of research students, working in the multi-disciplinary domain of Assistive Technology
interfaces for gaming on a universal design platform, along with new research into bio-
affective feedback triggers for movement and ‘control’ in virtual worlds and game
environments (including learning environments).
We are testing the effectiveness of available tools for using eye movement as a control
mechanism for communications by people with little or no other voluntary muscle movement.
With collaborator James Brosnan, the ‘alpha user’ of the system, we are writing a book
including an expert analysis of the health and well being advantages of using an ‘unplugged’
interface system (forthcoming from MIT Press, 2007)
Research Cluster 2:
Accessible Tech / Personal & Community Fabrication, & ICT4D
Current projects under this research cluster include:
o Communities of Play: MAGICbox
Group Leaders: Professor Baktiar Mikhak, Professor Lizbeth Goodman, Suzanne Stein
Team: Jose Marinez, Turlif Vilbrandt, Toby Borland, Ed Baffi, Clilly Castiglia, Damini Kumar,
Tahmina Parvin
The MAGICbox Project has been designed as

the core learning community test bed for this
broad range of researchers. The MAGIC lab
space will host MAGICbox: its equipment and
research teams, and will provide a base for the
seminars, think-tanks, skillshop and playshop
events.
In these, the SMARTlab core methodology of

action-research and the integration of theatre
games into learning games will be tried and tested alongside more standard ‘product design’
and learning methods.
o Immersive Play
Group Leaders: Professor Lizbeth Goodman,

Kristina Nyzell, Suzanne Stein
Team: Ed Burton, Anita McKeown, Clilly Castiglia,
Fiddian Warman, Dr Genaro Rebolledo-Mendez, Dr
Esther McCallum-Stewart, Dr Jacquelyn Ford Morie,
Dr Celia Pearce
This group occasionally works in collaboration with

the Rix Centre for People with Learning Disabilities, and/or with selected school and
community groups throughout the UK and internationally. The Immersive Play team explores
online games and engines of use for East London communities of young people and people
with disabilities.
It is closely linked to the research of Soda: one of a set of core creative teams based in the
MAGIC centre at UEL. Soda has won numerous grants and awards (including a BAFTA) for
their creative uses of new technology in play, learning and art.
Immersive Play also interacts closely with UEL’s Rix Centre, and provides the Rix with a high
tech home on the UEL campus, where their long term work into gaming and interaction
studies for people with learning disabilities can be developed in a practical space for future
tech development and hands on site-based research.
o ScreentoScreen/ BodytoScreen
Group Leaders: Dr Leslie Hill, Dr Susan Kozel, Dr Sher Doruff, Dr Marc Price, Prof. Lizbeth
Goodman et al
Team: Dr Deveril Gallagher, Dr Jools Gilson-Ellis, Dr Christopher Hales, Stanza, Alexis
Johnson, Dr Sol Haring, Anita McKeown, Jana Riedel, et al
The SMARTlab has invented a number of new

interactive screen technologies over the years,
and is currently investing in research around
the uses of screenic work in learning, teaching
and entertainment.
Dr Leslie Hill and Dr Susan Kozel convene

research into the spaces of real people and
bodies in virtual space, and of the virtual in
physical space. The range of projects and the
large cohort of PhDs underway in this field are testament to the new sites of convergence and
divergence in interactive media practice. The work of interactive film makers, experience
designers, digital narrative experts and designers and performers all comes together in
collaborative showcase events and publications arising from this group.
Dr Sher Doruff invented the Keyworx platform with the WAAG society Amsterdam, and
developed and tested the software through a major four years research project that led to
award of the PhD with the SMARTlab in 2006. She leads a new team including three noted
post-doctoral scholars and practitioners or interactive film.
o SafetyNET: Wearable Technologies that communicate and empower women
Group leaders: Professor Daria Dorosh, Sheila Robinson, Dr Susan Kozel

Team: Camille Baker, Daria Dorosh, Kathy & Tara Mooney (Bodkin Designs), Rachel
Lasebikan, Gayil Nalls
One of the biggest gaps in the field of rapid prototyping of

tools for learning, internationally, is the field of ‘wearable
tech’ that can be made in affordable, accessible settings.
The SMARTlab runs the SafetyNET project for women
and young people who have survived domestic violence,
and creates shelter and IT training programmes to ‘skill
up’ women for more safe, sustainable future careers.
As part of this project, the team has created two award

winnings set of wearable tech and ‘cyberfashion’
garments and fashion lines, premiered at the prestigious
Siggraph conferences in Los Angeles in 2004 and 2005.
The fashion and technology teams have joined forces with
MAGICbox, to purchase a Shima Seiki Whole Glove
Knitting Machine, to be added to the MAGICbox
equipment and training programme, specifically to encourage women and artists to apply their
skills to the making of new technology tools. In this, the team aims to move the field of
physical computing across the gender divide, and to empower next generation technology-
enhanced learning on new materials and fabrics, wearable technologies and futuretech
platforms for girls and women as well as for (the primarily male domain often described as)
‘techies’.
o Bridging the Gender Gap
Group Leaders: Dr Leslie Hill, Dr Esther McCallum-Stewart, Dr Mary Flanagan

Team: Vera Doerk, Vicki Munsell, Mary White, Dr Celia Pearce, Dr Katherine Milton, Camille
Baker et al
Professor Goodman is a leading theorist of

Gender Studies and a noted PI of projects
exploring the learning methods and
preferences of girls and young women, in club
tech learning environments, home
environments, women’s shelter, Open
University courses et al. Amongst the
numerous projects addressing the ‘girl games’
for education agenda upon which Professor
Goodman has worked as a senior
advisor/learning expert, a notable few include:
Values at Play (VAP), co-PI with Dr Mary Flanagan: exploring the values of gaming and the
implications of gender-aware programming and technology tools creation HOPE: a network of
hospital-based online game and education tools tested by medical doctors and patients in US
children’s hospitals (Harvard Med, Johns Hopkins et al).
Rapunzel, was led by Dr Mary Flanagan in New York public schools and Netsmartz was led
by Vicki Munsell as part of the BGCA/Microsoft Clubtech project.
Contact Us
For more information about the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute and our projects, please
contact us at:
University of East London

4-6 University Way
London
E16 2RD
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 8223 7823

Fax: 020 8223 7140
Email: info@SMARTlab.uk.com
Or visit our website at: http://www.SMARTlab.uk.com
The symbol of the SMARTlab is the butterfly: a creature of beauty (reflecting its artistic
aesthetic) and scientific wonder, and a metaphor for social change motivated by personal
growth and empowerment.
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The SMARTlab Digital Media Institute for Site-Specific

Media, Performance, Art, Design and Sustainable

The SMARTlab Mission is to bring together teams of designers, artists, scholars,

About the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute

For the past 17 years, the

We are currently located in the

SMARTlab's ethos is simple: every project is

Locally we operate out of a main UK site at our

The SMARTlab is acknowledged for its community

SMARTlab operates alongside an independent charity known as ‘SafetyNET’

Projects are designed to meet the needs of those

The MAGIC PLAYroom

MAGIC is a creative space. It sits at the heart of SMARTlab, a research

MAGIC aims to:

Digital Media Expertise

• Visualization, simulation and interactive 3D modelling

• High-end HD film, video production and editing

Clients we have worked with:

The SMARTlab team operates across genres,

The SMARTlab team includes designers, live artists,

SMARTlab approaches experience design in an innovative format framed by improvisation,

User-centred Experience Design can be used to engage communities and to:

- “Discovering the Message”, Experience Thinktanks taking clients through an engaging

SMARTlab Senior Management

Lizbeth founded SMARTlab 17 years ago while at the BBC-Open

Dr Mick Donegan, Deputy Director Academic & Principal Researcher

Mick Donegan is the Deputy Academic Director (Principal Researcher,

He is a leader in two major research projects: COGAIN, a European Network of Excellence

Verity Slater: SMARTlab Deputy Director Development

Verity Slater recently joined SMARTlab on a part-time basis building on

Babak Davarpanah Varnosefadarani

Babak Davarpanah Varnosefadarani is our Community and Social

Anna Sophia Schenk

Anna Sophia is Research Coordinator at SMARTlab. Born in Germany,

Rachel, our Funding, PR & Events Coordinator, has over 12 years of

Anita McKeown’s role at SMARTlab is within Project Development –

Stanislava currently works for SMARTlab in the role

SMARTlab Core Technical Team

Toby is our MAGICbox Researcher/Manager and has worked with

Clilly Castiglia, SMARTlab's Director of Operations, was the Senior Vice

Learning Technologist and Online Learning Coordinator/Virtual World

Vanessa is SMARTlab’s Video Producer and Technology Manager. With

SMARTlab Core Academic Team:

SMARTlab Faculty and Post-Doctoral Researchers:

Sara is currently President of the Ontario College of Art & Design

Sher Doruff is Adjunct Faculty member at SMARTlab/University of East

Brian is Associate Principal Researcher at SMARTlab, and also senior

Dr Leslie Hill, PhD Programme co-Convenor

Dr Leslie Hill is Principal Researcher in Performance Technologies at

Susan Kozel works at the convergence of performance and digital

She is the director of Mesh PerformancePractices http://www.meshperformance.org and has

Dr Jacquelyn Ford Morie has been at the forefront of immersive world

Faculty and Post-Doctoral Fellows

Dr Ryya. Bread is SMARTlab‘s Research Methodologies Convenor for the

Dr Deveril, Post-Doc Fellow

Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Interactive Film. Chris is an

Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart, Post-Doc Fellow

Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at

Will is an expert in communications for the blind and partially sighted. He

Dr Rachel Armstrong (MD) is a medical doctor who chooses to work at

Camille Baker is a Researcher with SMARTlab, leading on our BBC project

Erin is a speech language pathologist who has practiced in the field of