Mixed Reality Laboratory

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Alan Chamberlain

Principal Research Fellow, Faculty of Science

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Biography

Description

Dr Alan Chamberlain is a Principal Research Fellow in the Mixed Reality Lab and the Director of the interdisciplinary STAHR Collective at the University of Nottingham. He is a Visiting Professor at the Copenhagen Business School and a Visiting Professor in Psychology at Aberystwyth University. He is a Principal Research Fellow, carrying out research on the following projects Somabotics: Creatively Embodying AI project - working with Prof Steve Brnford, and Responsible AI UK (RAI UK). He is also a Co-Investigator on the Wellcome Trust funded REC-HURDLEs: Revisiting Employment Contracts and Help for Under-represented Researcher groups to Develop, Lead and Excel project.

He has been the Principal Investigator on the EXIoT Project - Experimental IoT: Explorations in Sound Art and Technology (working with Professor Dave De Roure at the University of Oxford), and was a UKRI funded Researcher in Residence (Principal Investigator) at the Digital Catapult, London. He was a Co-Investigator on the Future Mundane project, as well as the Creative Sector Theme Lead on the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous System Hub (a large £11,896,883 UKRI project). He also co-directed the AHRC nTAIL Network - Theatre, AI and Ludic Technologies Network..

He has published numerous papers on many aspects of Human Computer Interaction and has successfully obtained funding for a wide range of research projects, working with international companies (BBC, BT & Microsoft), artists or world renown and leading experts across a variety of academic fields. He has been a Visiting Academic at the University of Oxford and Visiting Researcher at Swansea University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the world leading Copenhagen Business School. He is a member of the EUSSET Steering Comittee, an Editor for the Springer Nature Journal - Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, and a member of the Audio Mostly Conference series committee, where he holds the Vice Chair Poisition. He has been part of the scientific program committee for many world-leading international conferences, including ACM CHI and CSCW. He is a member of the Audio Mostly Conference Series Steering Committee and Chaired the conference in 2019, bringing it to the University of Nottingham. From 2015 to 2018 he co-directed the Personal Data and Trust Network (Social and Cultural Innovation strand) - inc. EPSRC, Digital Catapult & Innovate UK.

At the University of Nottingham Dr Chamberlain is the Chair of the UoN Research Staff Group, directing and leading researcher strategy, policy and the role of Research Staff at a University level. He is an Honorary Fellow in the Music Department where he has promoting interdisciplinary research at the university. He was thrilled to be able to chair one of the sessions at the NottFAR Nottingham Forum for Artistic Research Symposium. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Alan is a member of the AI Group at the University of Nottingham, where his main interests lie in the creative use and application of Artificial Intelligence framed by HCI, as well as a member of the Responsible Digital Futures Group.

Funding Reviewing

Alan is a Member of the AHRC Peer Review College, he has reviewed grant applications for:

  • EPSRC (Where he was a member of the Peer Review College)
  • The Dutch Council for the Humanities
  • The Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong
  • Swiss National Science Foundation
  • Internal UoN reviews for UKRI-related projects
  • Internal UoN reviews and sifting for Wellcome Trust funding

Profiles

ORCID - Alan Chamberlain

ACM Profile

Google Scholar Profile

Open Access Publications here - RIS - University of Nottingham Research Outputs His research interests are also listed on Academia.edu profile

Expertise Summary

Research interests

Alan's research in multidisciplinary, focusing on the ways in which people use and design new technologies. He mainly employs design oriented ethnographic techniques to understand and discuss this. He has worked on a range of research project which span the Arts, Music, Business, Heritage and Social Enterprises (in Rural and Urban settings). He is interested in design, technology (AI, VR/AR, Robotics, Audio etc.) and their application to real-world problems as articulated by various communities of practice. His research is based in Human Computer Interaction, Ethnography, Action Research, Participatory Design and User Engagement in order to develop networks of people that are able to involve themselves in the practices of innovation and design. Alan sits on the Advocacy and Engagement Committee for the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous System Hub

Human Computer Interaction , HCI , Design , Interdisciplinary , AI

Research Summary

Current Projects

REC-HURDLEs: Revisiting Employment Contracts and Help for Under-represented Researcher groups to Develop, Lead and Excel - (Co-Investigator, awarded 2023, End 2026) c £1 Million, Wellcome Trust.

UNMASKED: The Theatre of Authenticity - (Co-Investigator, 2024 - 2025) SPRITE+ (UKRI)

Experimental IoT: Explorations in Sound Art and Technology (EXIoT) - (Principal Investigator) (CI - Dave De Roure, Oxford) awarded from PETRAS II

Experiencing the Future Mundane - (Co-Investigator - Researcher) EPSRC, Grant Details - Value £461,078, BBC as a partner. (2019 -2023)

UKRI TAS Hub - Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub.(Creative Industries - Sector Lead - Principal Research Fellow) Grant Details - Value £11,896,883

- TAS RRI I & TAS RRI II - TAS Agile project - Principle Investigator (with Prof Greenhalgh) - Leading a team of 14 people. (2022 - 2024). Funded via UKRI TAS Hub

- Co-Design of Context-Aware Trustworthy Audio Capture - TAS Agile Project (CI, Nottingham Lead) - Team of 9 people. Academic and Industry. (2022 - 2023) Funded via UKRI TAS Hub

- TAS Benchmarks Library and Critical Review - TAS Agile Project (Co-I, Nottingham Lead) Team - 14 people (2022 - 2023) Funded via UKRI TAS Hub

AHRC Network - Theatre, AI and Ludic Technologies (NTAIL) (Co-Investigator/Co-Director) Grant Details - Value £22,000 (Feb 21 - Dec 22)

Disruptive Beats: Music, AI, Creativity, Composition and Performance (UKRI - Principal Investigator) £50,000 - Researcher in Residence Award) (2019 - 2022)

EPSRC Nottingham Impact Award - AI, Music and Design (Principal investigator) £21,000

EPSRC Nottingham Impact Award - Music Technology (Principal Investigator) £10,000

Communities of Design - Co-Director/CI (with Alan Dix 2019 - 2020) £10,000, Awarded from CHERISH DE

Fusing Audio and Semantic Technologies (Senior Research Fellow) Grant Details - Value £5,199,944 across the project

Living with Digital Ubiquity (Named - Senior Research Fellow) £1,225,669 Citizen Scholarship in Nottingham: understanding the value of engaging users with heritage and culture (Senior Research Fellow) - Project page AHRC

Past

The Magellan Project - http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/110521_en.html (Senior Researcher) - €9,937,963

EPSRC EP/J000604/2 Co-investigator Researcher - £1,053,173 linked to project below

EPSRCEP/J000604/1 Co-investigator Researcher - £1,263,925

HUMAN-AGENT COLLECTIVES: FROM FOUNDATIONS TO APPLICATIONS [ORCHID] EP/I011587/1 (Senior Research Fellow - Design Ethnography)

Prototyping Open Innovation Models for ICT EP/K014234/2 (Senior Research Fellow - Design Ethnography) £1,673,748

Hub of All Things EP/K039911/1 (Senior Research Fellow - Design Ethnography) £982,373

Bridgingthe Rural Divide - EPSRCEP/I001816/1, Recognised Researcher (Named), 2010 - 2012. Value £230,515

Horizon Digital Economy, Urban Games, with Prof Greenhalgh & Active Ingredients. See ExplodingPlaces (Research Fellow)

IPERG- Integrated project on pervasive gaming, with Sony, Nokia, Blast Theory (Research Fellow - Evaluation Lead (Notts)) €9,766,215

EPSRC/DTI Participate project, with BT, BBC, Microsoft, Blast Theory - (Research Fellow)

Recent Publications

Roles University of Nottingham Chair of the Research Staff Commitee - University Level

Member of the Researcher Concordat Committee - University Level

Member of the Research Committee - School of Computer Science

Researcher Champion - School of Computer Science

Member of the Policy Working Group - Knowledge Exchange and Research Culture - University Level (Adopted Poilicy UoN)

Member of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers Working Group - University Level (Adopted Policy UoN)

Member of the review panel - Wellcome Trust, Institutional Research Culture

Faculty of Science Research-Staff Representative - University Level (ended when the Chair of Research Staff was taken up).

Appointments University of Nottingham, Department of Music - Honorary Research Fellowship (2020 - current)

Copenhagen Business School - Visiting Professor (2020 - current)

University of Oxford - Visiting Academic (2015 - 2018)

EUSSET - Steering Committee (European Association of Researchers Interested in Socially-Embedded Technologies - 2017 - Current)

Audio Mostly Conference series - Steering Committee - (2019 - Current)

RSA Fellow (Royal Society for Encouragement of Arts - current) MISM Member of ISM

ACM Ambassador (SIGCHI) (Association of Computer Machinery - 2017/18) Volunteer Spotlight - ACM SIGCHI

Committees & Reviewing, Journal Editorials - recent

Editor (currently) - (PUC) Personal and Ubiquitous Computing ISSN: 1617-4909 (Print) ISSN: 1617-4917 (Electronic) Publisher: Springer-Nature. Associate Editor (current) Frontiers in Human Dynamics

Panel Chair, ECSCW 2019

Doctoral Consortium Chair, Communities & Technology 2019 (EUSSET/ACM)

Technical Programme Committee, Audio Mostly 2018 (ACM)

Program Committee, MUM 2018 (ACM)

Program Committee, ECSCW 2018 (EUSSET)

Posters & Demos Chair, ECSCW 2017 (EUSSET)

Associate Chair, DIS 2017 (ACM)

Program Committee, MUM 2017 (ACM)

Program Committee, ACM Multimedia 2017 (ACM) (Ubiquitous Multimedia)

Program Committee, C&T 2017 (ACM)

Associate Chair, DIS 2016 (ACM)

Associate Chair, AVI 2016

Associate Committee, MobileHCI 2016 (ACM)

Programme Committee, HCC 2016 (Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Associate Committee, CSCW 2015 (ACM) Program Committee, India HCI, 2014

Chair (Publicity) 5th International Conference on Sensor Systems and Software, 2014. Springer Verlag

Associate Editor - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Special Issue The Turn to the Wild. 2013 News The science of music brought to the big screen Music is an integral part of any film, and research into computer generated music has been used to create the soundtrack for a film that has been nominated for a British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC) Learning Screen Award. http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/newsroom/2018/03/12/science-music-brought-big-screen/

Dr Alan Chamberlain takes up Visiting Academic position at University of Oxford

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/computerscience/news/dr-alan-chamberlain-takes-up-visiting-academic-position-at-university-of-oxford.aspx Group unearths Bronze Age find at Pen Dinas hillfort https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-mid-wales-39847917

Bridging the Urban Rural Divide Dr Alan Chamberlain of Nottingham University is part of a team of 12 researchers taking part. "There is a huge amount of information available to people in urban areas so that when you walk down a street you can access a street map, find the nearest restaurant or the history of a building you are standing outside, " said Dr Chamberlain. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/midwales/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9184000/9184345.stm

Past Research

Lead Proposer (small awards)

CEKE Fellowship (PI) Collections, Community and Culture: Exploring the Nature of Heritage and Diaspora (2013) £5,000

HERMES Fellowship (PI) Building Early Career Capacity: big data communities, software and engineering (2013) £3,000

Convergence: Interdisciplinary Interpretations of People, Place and Pervasive Media, Troubadour Award (PI), Awarded from the grant: EPSRC Reference: EP/H024867/1 - Towards Pervasive Media

Performative Aspects of Pervasive Computing (PI) - Awarded from the grant: EPSRC Reference: EP/F013442/1 - UBICOMP Grand Challenge Award

Nano Histories (PI) - Awarded from the grant EPSRC Reference: EP/E018580 - Bridging the Gaps between Mathematics, ICT and Engineering - £3,000

Rural Ubiquitous Computing (PI) - Awarded from the grant: EPSRC Reference: EP/F03038X/1 - The Challenge of Widespread Ubiquitous Computing

Co-Written/Named

Riders Have Spoken: Designing and Evaluating an Archive for Replaying Interactive Performances - AHRC "Beyond Text Programme" Recognised Researcher (Named), 2010 - 2011. Value £12877.56 (full cost)

Research Council Involvement

AHRC Peer Review College Member - Current EPSRC Reviewer - Current

EPSRC 2018 Building a Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing Community (Invited via Application), Cardiff, UK

2010 Bridging the Urban Rural Divide (RCUK/EPSRC) - Funding/Future Direction Workshop (Selected Member) Birmingham UK

2011 Early Career Meeting (EPSRC) Nottingham UK Past EPSRC Peer Review College Memeber - Network Membership

2015 - 2018 Personal Data and Trust Network (co-Lead) Social and Cultural Innovation - EPSRC, Digital Catapult & Innovate UK

RCUK - Communities and Culture Network +

AHRC - Rural Connective

Mixed Reality Laboratory

University of Nottingham
School of Computer Science
Nottingham, NG8 1BB


email: mrl@cs.nott.ac.uk