About
I am Jen, I work in the Future Interaction Technology Lab in the Computational Foundry. My primary research interest is centred around so-called emergent communities where a certain set of challenges inhibit users from accessing technology (e.g., lack of internet connectivity, limited power, low literacy, little access to smart phones etc). As part of this work, I spend a significant amount of time working in-situ with community end-users learning from them and working with them to create digital interactive systems that suit their contexts.
The majority of my work is in collaboration with some very close colleagues in Swansea, but also across the world including strong links with collaborators in IIT Bombay, Université Joseph Fourier, University of Edinburgh, The University of Cape Town, IBM, Microsoft and Google. This work which involves significant travel to, and engagement with, local communities in India, South Africa and Kenya, has won several awards (including 7 best-paper/honourable mention awards as well as one for long-term impact) and generated much media attention (For example one project, which explores the use of conversational speech interfaces in public slum environments via long-term in-situ deployments, was recently featured in the EPSRC's report on “A decade of success in the Digital Economy” and covered by BBC Digital Planet). Further information on my publications can be found below and is also available from ACM, DBLP and Google Scholar.
I am currently twenty percent seconded to the Morgan Advanced Studies Institute (MASI) as a research entrepreneur and have recently been appointed as co-director of research for the department.
