Meet the people who make up STEM Faculty.
Daniel completed his undergraduate studies in Computer Science at the University of Bath, where he also completed his MSc in HCI. His postgraduate study was also at the University of Bath where he also did an internship at Yahoo's Research Lab in San Jose. His PhD focussed on the development of haptic communication technology for long distance couples.
In 2013 he joined the University of Birmingham as a Research Fellow, moving to the Institute of Education/UCL to continue working on the EU-funded ILearnRW project, exploring the use of tablet software for children with dyslexia. He joined the Open University as a Research Associate on the MK:Smart project in 2015 where he led the citizen engagement work package.
He was appointed as a lecturer in the School of Computing and Communications in 2017. Since then he has supervised a number of PhD students and been a co-investigator on a number of grants relating to privacy, mobile and ubiquitous computing, and digital health and wellbeing. He has contributed to a range of modules, particularly in HCI (TM356) and in our level 1 curriculum (TM112, TM129, and TM113).
Daniel is principally a human-computer interaction (HCI) researcher. His research interests are motivated by wanting to understand how we can best design technology to fit within, and where necessary change, peoples practices and behaviour. The work he does is interdisciplinary, cutting across computer science, psychology, information science, design and education.
His research takes place in two broad contexts. The first is Digital Health and Wellbeing, where he has worked on a number of EPSRC funded grants. He also has an interest in communication technologies, both small-scale (personal relationship technology) and large-scale communication and community building, particularly around civic engagement and Smart City projects.
Daniel's main teaching interest is in how we can provide practical experience of relevant methods, tools and techniques, something particularly challenging when teaching at a distance.
He current chairs the production of TM113 (Computing fundamentals 2), and has previously chaired TM129 (Technologies in Practice) where he worked with the OpenSTEM Lab to provide students access to Raspberry Pi clusters at a distance. He has also been part of the module team for TM356 (Interaction design and the user experience) where he led the hackathon day-event where students get hands-on experience of prototyping techniques.
He has previously worked on the TM112 (Introduction to computing and information technology 2) module team and been an author on TT284 (Web technologies).
As one of the PGRTs within the School of C&C, Daniel also runs the PhD training program for PhD students across C&C and KMi, as well as running the annual conference. Though this he supports the Pragmatic PhD blog.
Impact and public engagement is an important part Daniel's practice, particularly with regards to his research interest in digital civics.
The Smart City initiative he ran in Milton Keynes, Our MK, had public engagement at its core. He organised over 10 events, attended by around 500 people, and the web-based platform had 13,000 visits to the website. Our MK has been featured in the NESTA report “What Next For Digital Social Innovation” as an excellent example of citizen outreach within Smart Cities. Our MK and its associated projects won several awards, and was heavily featured in the local press.
Daniel has been working closely with Blaine Price on the award-winning PainPad device, which is used extensively across Milton Keynes University Hospital to record patient pain. He has been analysing this unique data set to answer medical-related questions, and help support patient care.
Daniel works closely with clinicians and researchers at Milton Keynes University Hospital as well as the community activists at Community Action: MK. He has also been working with Age UK on the STRETCH and SERVICE research projects.
