University of Nottingham (UNOTT)

The University of Nottingham is a public research university in the city of Nottingham, England, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The university was founded in 1881 and is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 100 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong (SJTU) and Times Higher (THE) World University Rankings, and the 2008 RAE found 60 per cent of Nottingham's research to be ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

The Mixed Reality Lab (MRL) is based at the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, one of the leading research schools in the UK. The MRL is a dedicated studio facility where computer scientists, psychologists, sociologists, engineers, architects and artists collaborate to explore the potential of ubiquitous, mobile and mixed reality technologies to shape everyday life.

The MRL has extensively participated in European research. It has been a core participant of the highly innovative i3 programme in Framework IV Long Term Research, where it was a member of the eRENA project and leader of the KidStory project. It has been at the heart of the Framework V Disappearing Computer initiative as a member of the Shape, Accord and Mime projects. More recently the MRL has participated in the IST Sixth Framework Programme through iPerG (Integrated Project on Pervasive Gaming) and INSCAPE (Integrated Project on Interactive Storytelling for Creative People).

University of Nottingham people

Prof. Steve Benford is Professor of Collaborative Computing, a founder of the Mixed Reality Laboratory, and also a founder of the Horizon Centre for Digital Economy Research at the University of Nottingham. His research explores the creation of new interactive technologies to support cultural and creative experiences, with a particular emphasis on mixed reality and ubiquitous computing. He was an investigator on EPSRC’s Equator project between 2000 and 2007 and is currently Directing Nottingham’s Doctoral Training Centre in Ubiquitous Computing for the Digital Economy. His artistic collaborations have led to the award of the 2003 Prix Ars Electronica for Interactive Art, the Nokia 2007 Mindtrek award for innovative applications of ubiquitous computing and four BAFTA nominations, while his academic publications have received best paper awards at CHI 2005, CHI 2009 and CHI 2011. He is currently Head of School of Computer Science at Nottingham and will take up a personal EPSRC Dream Fellowship later in 2011.

Dr Boriana Koleva is a senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham. Her research area is the field of Human Computer Interaction with a particular emphasis on mixed reality and ubicomp interfaces for cultural experiences. Dr. Koleva was a principal investigator for the UK EPSRC funded project Combining mobile devices and situated installations for extended and coherent user experiences and site manager for the EU FP6 Project INSCAPE on Digital Storytelling, as part of which she has been developing an AR authoring tool. Her research has led to the publication of over 40 papers in conferences and journals, including ACM CHI, ACM DIS, ECSCW, UbiComp, Presence and ACM Transactions on CHI.

Dr Peter Tolmie is an Ethnographer and Ethnomethodologist working in the Mixed Reality Laboratory at Nottingham since 2006. He started work at Lancaster Centre for CSCW in 1997, worked for Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE) – Cambridge and Grenoble labs – 2000 to 2006. He was Area Manager of the Work Practice Technology Group at XRCE Grenoble 2005 to 2006. He has conducted numerous ethnographic studies for purposes of design across the domains including: Retail Finance, Printer and Copier Repair; Call Centres and Remote Customer Care; Healthcare; Graphic Arts; Musical Performance; Film and TV Production; Domestic Life; Game-Playing; Photographic Practices; Visiting of Cultural and Recreational Sites.. He has numerous publications in the fields of HCI, CSCW, and Ethnomethodology.

Dr Holger Schndelbach is a Senior Research Fellow in the Mixed Reality Lab (MRL), Computer Science, University of Nottingham. His PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture was concerned with the spatial aspects of the relationship between physical and virtual environments, leading to the prototypical Mixed Reality Architecture (MRA), an always-on awareness and communication tool that becomes embedded into the building infrastructure. MRA has been extensively tested in academia and in a commercial setting, and it has recently been exhibited at Shanghai World Expo. His work at the MRL has provided experience in designing, implementing and evaluating interactive systems and this has resulted in publications in leading conferences and journals, such as ACM CHI, TOCHI, CSCW, Presence and Space Syntax Symposium. During a recent Leverhulme Fellowship he was given the space to concentrate on Adaptive Architecture, concerned with buildings that adapt to their environment, their inhabitants and objects in their vicinity.

Stefan Rennick-Egglestone is a Research Fellow in the Mixed Reality Laboratory at Nottingham. He has a degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, and began his career as an IT specialist at the Bank of England, but has been working in research since 2003. Although originally a technical specialist, much of his research now focuses on the use of participatory design techniques to support the design of effective computer systems, and his PhD thesis is constructed around a design-led exploration of novel systems to support physical rehabilitation from stroke. Stefan has trained as a psychotherapist, and is actively seeking opportunities to integrate psychotherapeutic knowledge into the process of designing interactive systems. As well as the CHESS project, he is currently working with the University of Manchester on a review of existing mental health technologies, and is also involved in participatory design activities focussed on technologies to support the efficient usage of energy.

Dr Patrick Brundell is a research fellow in the Mixed Reality Laboratory (MRL), Computer Science, University of Nottingham. His background is in experimental social and educational psychology, with a focus on real-time communication technologies, learning and interactive systems deployed in museums. His PhD investigated deception and communication media. Since joining the MRL in 2008 Dr Brundell has researched the technologies to support qualitative analyses as part of the eSocial-Science programme. He has also conducted numerous studies of the design, implementation and use of interactive systems to support entertainment and informal learning in public spaces .