My research focuses on democratizing the development of emerging technologies. More specifically, by establishing more accessible approaches for designing and building emerging technologies such as robotics, wearables, and shape-changing interfaces. To advance the field, my research focuses not only understanding in these technologies (e.g., their design), but also how to build them (e.g., engineer them) and how to innovate with them (e.g., application). In this talk I will go into detail about some of the projects I have worked on around this topic across the fields of HCI, design, and engineering.

Dr. Aluna Everitt is an incoming lecturer (assistant professor) at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, is currently a postdoc in the cyber-physical systems group at the University of Oxford, and a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College. She is also a Senior Visiting Researcher at the University of Bristol, where she was a postdoc at BIG Lab prior to joining Oxford. Her PhD is in Computer Science from Lancaster University, in the field of HCI. As a multi-disciplinary researcher, her areas of interest and expertise lie across the fields of HCI, Design, and Engineering. She has a particular interest in conducting both quantitative and qualitative research which combines a mix of engineering fabrication approaches for prototyping, together with collaborative design (co-design) to encourage users and experts from different domains to develop content and applications for the next generation of interactive hardware systems and interfaces (e.g., shape-changing displays and robotics).