UCL Human Informatics

Human Informatics, Emerging Technologies, Future Interfaces, Affective computing, AI, Personalisation, Agent-Based Modelling, Augmented & Virtual and Reality, VR/AR/XR/AI Therapy & Digital Well-being.

UCLHI researchers work at the convergence of multiple disciplines that are concerned both with understanding and modelling human activities with the design of information systems and intelligent computational technologies.

	Daniela Romano - is an experienced researcher, in an honorary position in the Department of Information Studies at UCL. She is a Professor of AI and Games in the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at De Montfort University, where is currently the Director. She is currently studying the Human-AI relationship, Affective Computing Technology and Game Addiction in Virtual Reality. Her work is often in collaboration with industry and applied.
	Aly El Shafey – is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. He is currently researching on the haptic feedback in autonomous vehicles. He is supervised by Dr Daniela, M Romano.
	Felipe Sheward - is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Studies. His PhD topic is Affective Footwear. He is investigating footwear's influence on human movement and the biomechanics throughout the manifestation of fatigue during movement tasks. The project will develop affective footwear that adapt to its user. He is supervised by Dr Daniela, M Romano, Dr Nicolai Marquardt, UCL Interaction Centre.
	Fjorda Kazazi – is a doctoral student in Experimental Psychology and member of UCLHI. She is researching how to diagnose attentional issues, and develop Virtual Reality Training to improve attention. She is supervised by Professor Peter Howell and Dr Daniela Romano.
	Olga Loboda - is a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Studies. Her PhD research explores the transformations of visitor experience with recommender systems in physical museums. Olga is supervised by Dr Julianne Nyhan, Dr Daniela Romano and Simon Mahony.
	Peter Williams - is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Information Studies. He is currently working on a full-time Post-doc Fellowship from the British Academy, entitled ‘Digital Lives’, investigating the role of ‘digital technology’ (mobile phones, laptops, apps, social media etc.) in the lives of people with learning disabilities.
	Thomas Langford - is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Neurology. His research focuses on the development of personalised digital rehabilitation therapies for people with language impairments (aphasia/alexia) acquired after a stroke or brain injury. He is funded by an MRC industrial CASE studentship and supervised by Prof Alex Leff, Prof Jenny Crinion and Dr Daniela Romano in collaboration with the industrial partner, Ashley Peacock (Passio).

Latest Projects:

ClearStations

The project aims to develop a proof of concept demonstrator, which will utilise agent-based-modelling and virtual reality technology, to support reasoning and decision making during large construction projects, deployed on phases. ClearStation is in collaboration with Costain, and the case study is Gatwick airport station regeneration project. Funded by UCL EPSRC IAA.

Manh Pham is our Researcher on the project, under the supervision of PI Daniela Romano.

UCLHI External Partners and Collaborators

Prof Nicolas Martin, School of Clinical Dentistry, University of Sheffield,
Dr Wei Liu, Electonic and Electrical Engineering, University of Sheffield,
Dr James Henshaw, Division of Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology, University of Manchester,
Dr Stephen Kellett, Clinical Psychology Unit, University of Sheffield
Helena Drury, Clinical Psychologist/Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, Sheffield IAPT

UCLHI Publications:

Moge, C., Romano, D.M. (2020). Contextualising Video Game Engagement and Addiction in Mental Health: The Mediating Roles of Coping and Social Support. Heliyon 6 (2020) e05340
Sharan, N., N., Romano, D., M., (July 2020). Exploring personality and locus of control in humans and artificial intelligence. Heliyon 6 (2020) e04572
Romano, D.M., Longson, T., Martin, N. (2020). Minimal Data Set for Remote Clinical Consultations in Restorative Dentistry - An Exploratory Case Study. European European Journal of Prosthodontics and Restorative Dentistry (2020) 28, 1–9.
White, A., Romano, D.M. (2020). Scalable Psychological Momentum Estimation in Esports. SUM'20: State-based User Modelling, 13th ACM International WSDM Conference. February 3-7,2020, Houston, Texas USA.
Loboda, O., Nyhan, J., Mahony, S., Romano, D. M. and Terras, M. (2019). Content-based Recommender Systems for Heritage: developing a personalised museum tour. 1st International 'Alan Turing' Conference on Decision Support and Recommender Systems (DSRS-Turing 2019).
Garbaya, S., Romano, D. and Hattar, G. (2019). Gamification of Assembly Planning in Virtual Environments, Assembly Automation, Vol. 39 No. 5, pp. 931-943. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-10-2018-0147
Loboda O, Nyhan J, Mahony S and Romano D, (2018). Towards Evaluating the Impact of Recommender Systems on Visitor Experience in Physical Museums. Mobile HCI 2019: 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, 2018
Nazry, N.N.M., Romano, D.M. (2017). The Mood and Learning in navigation-Based Serious Games. Computers in Human Behavior. Elsevier. Volume 73, August 2017, Pages 596–604 (IF 5-years 3.724, Q1 in Human-Computer Interaction).
Hanshaw,J., Liu,W., Romano, D.M. (2017). Improving SSVEP-BCI Performance Using Pre-Trial Normalization Methods. IEEE 8th International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications – CogInfoCom 2017, 11-14 September 2017 in Debrecen, Hungary. BEST PAPER AWARD!
Attard, C., Mountain, G., Romano, D.M. (2016). Problem Solving, Confidence and Frustration when Carrying out Familiar Tasks on a non-familiar Mobile Device. Computers in Human Behavior. Elsevier. Volume 61, Pages 300-312. (IF 5-years 3.724, Q1 in Human-Computer Interaction).
Breslin, D., Romano, D., & Percival, J. (2016). Conceptualizing and modeling multi-level organizational co-evolution. In Agent-Based Simulation of Organizational Behavior (pp. 137-157). Springer International Publishing.
Al-Saleh, M. and Romano, D.M. (2015). Culturally Appropriate Behavior in Virtual Agents. AIIDE 2015, 11th Annual AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, United States of America, Santa Cruz, 14-18 November 2015.
Hanshaw,J., Liu,W., Romano, D.M. (2014). Problem Solving Using Hybrid Brain-Computer Interface Methods: a Review. 5th IEEE CogInfoCom 2014, Vietri sul Mare, Italy, 5-7 November 2014. ubiquitous.
Sakellariou, I., Kurdi, O., Gheorghe, M., Romano, D., Kefalas, P., Ipate, F., & Niculescu, I. (2014, September). Crowd formal modelling and simulation: The Sa'yee ritual. In Computational Intelligence (UKCI), 2014 14th UK Workshop on (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Romano, D. (2014). Behaviour Research: Decision Making in Complex Systems. In USES 2014: The University of Sheffield Engineering Symposium, 24 June 2014, The Octagon Centre University of Sheffield.
Percival, J., Wood, N., Breslin, D.A., Romano, D.M. (2014). An Agent-based Simulation of Organizational Co-Evolution. The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB). Workshop IV: Modelling Organisational Behaviour and Social Agency. Bournemouth University, 27-28 January 2014.
Williams, P. (2012). Comparing the effectiveness of different website designs in facilitating information retrieval for people with learning disabilities. In iCERi2012 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (pp. 123-133). Madrid, Spain: International Association of Technology, Education and Development (IATED).