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My name's Doctor Jo Lumsden, I'm a lecturer in Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
My research area is human-computer interaction, so that's
studying ,evaluating and designing for human-interaction with technology, so the kind of the "people" side of technology use.
I've a particular passion for mobile human-computer interaction and
in particular - within that - designing personal assistive mobile technologies for societal benefits,
so for people with disabilities to improve their quality of life.
I actually teach all the human-computer interaction
across second and final and graduate-level at the University, and that
covers teaching them about how humans perceive user-interfaces,
teaching students and getting them to think carefully about the design choices
that they make when they're designing user-interfaced technology,
helping students or supervising in particular in the research and
postgraduate level, helping them develop novel technologies that will work,
for instance, with people with age-related macular degeneration,
people who have got dementia, help them with medication adherence
so it's a huge spectrum, there's literally no technology
that doesn't need the human side thought of at some...
any, any kind of interactive technology needs the human-computer
interaction element though of at some point. So it comes into teaching at all levels
as well as the research level, and I do a lot of graduate-level supervision as well.
I haven't always been an academic. I started off as a research assistant
while I was doing my PhD, then worked as a sort of post-doc
research assistant but then I moved out to Canada actually and I worked in in a Federal research lab
for the National Research Council of Canada, where we had a remit to do
research that was for the benefit of the Canadian people.
And so a lot of that was very applied, working with industry, working with individuals.
And I think I've brought... I'd like to think that I've brought
that element and that philosophy in my research, into
not just my research here - back in academia - but also into my teaching.
I'm manager of the Aston Interactive Media - or AIM Labf - here as Aston University
and the lab has been specifically designed to help support industry-
and academia-led research into novel interaction technologies.
I was - I suppose - quite privileged and honoured
to be effectively given some space and some money
and asked to redesign a completely new lab, which I did when I first came here.
I love my research but I absolutely love teaching
and teaching to me isn't just about imparting knowledge, it's about
sharing ideas, it's about encouraging students to be the best they absolutely can be,
to teach keen enthusiastic young minds and help mould them into the next generation of industry leaders,
of innovators and research leaders, is an absolute privilege.
I'm hopefully not old enough - just yet - to have forgotten what my own lecturers, my own
tutors were like, when I was at University.
And they had a profound influence, naturally on my career choice - I'm still in academia, I did a PHD.
And I still remember those... some of those lecturers really fondly
they last in your memory, and we have a lot to be thankful to our lectures for.
And I'd like to think that I now am - in turn - turning that round and
having the same effect and giving the same support to my students that I got when I was at university.
I'd like to think it makes a difference. When you get an email from a student,
who's recently graduated or even several years down the line from graduation,
keeping in touch with you, telling you the fantastic job... they've got their dream job,
and relating it to the skills that you've taught them, then that's rewarding.
Similarly, when you have a student who emails you to tell you that
your subject has inspired them and that they have loved your topics, that's also rewarding.
Perhaps slightly unfortunately, over the last few years, I've had to support
a number of students who had some very personal impediments to their study
and through that support I've helped them get to the end of their degree
and actually - to see them graduate with pride
and to see the pride on the faces of their family when they finally make that goal post,
it's not just rewarding, it's an absolute honour for the students to have trusted you to that level,
to help them to get to that point. And that
for me personally, exceeds any research gain, any research award that you could ever achieve
is to get that student to that level.