Research

Stuart is a researcher at the Department of Computer Science within the field of Human-Computer Interaction.

Tangible user interfaces with children in care and adopted children

Stuart was involved with 'trove', a collaboration between the University of Bristol and Studio Meineck, which involves developing digital technologies to support looked after and adopted children with life story work. Life story work is a method for addressing past life events and developing the self. trove, a digital and physical memory box provides a stage for reminiscence, documentation of life stories, and a safe place to keep precious historical objects - portals to the past. The team have been undertaking participatory design workshops to understand the differences in context and requirements of children in a range of care environments. This work has featured at Interaction Design and Children (IDC) and CHI (The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems). This project is a collaboration with Professor Kirsten Cater (PI), Professor Debbie Watson (PI), Chloe Meineck, Tom Metcalfe, and Rachael Hahn.

Environmental enrichment for gorillas: Gorilla Game Lab

Stuart is the principal investigator on a project which aims to support the cognitive enrichment of gorillas in captivity through the design of innovative games. The project, 'Gorilla Game Lab', develops digital and tangible games of variable difficulty for the entire gorilla troop to play within their enclosures, requiring them to find and utilise tools in order retrieve food rewards from a series of puzzle modules. This work has been featured at the Fifth Annual Animal Computer Interaction Conference (IDC) and at in the Frontiers in Psychology journal. The project is a partnership between the University of Bristol and Bristol Zoo and is a collaboration with Dr Peter Bennett, Dr Katy Burgess, Dr Fay Clark, and Professor Kirsten Cater.

Academic-Industry Research Partnerships - Okko Health, Thomas Buchanan Ltd.

Stuart has collaborated with industry in the domains of serious games for children's health. He has previously undertaken an industry research secondment to Okko Health, a Bristol-based start-up who are revolutionising hospital eye care with the development of digital benchmarking and monitoring technologies. Work undertaken from the collaboration has featured at the CHIPlay conference. In 2020, Stuart is once again collaborating with Okko Health to understand the remote digital care for paediatric patients and those afflicted with glaucoma.

Stuart has also collaborated with Thomas Buchanan Ltd. on the development of a digital pet to raise children's awareness of their consumption of Free Sugar. The 'Sugargotchi', a digital and physical pet introduces a novel interaction mechanism which leverages the relationship between free sugar consumption and dental pH. This work has featured at CHIPlay.

Teaching

Stuart is also involved in teaching within the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Department of Computer Science.

In the Wild Unit: Innovation and Entrepreneurship MSc

Stuart has been a course coordinator on the In the Wild Unit since 2017. His role involves developing and delivering content on the topic of research methods, supervising and coaching student primary research, and assessing student coursework. This unit is coordinated in partnership with Dr Chris Bevan and Professor Kirsten Cater. 

Functional and Imperative Unit: Computer Science BSc

In 2020 Stuart began to undertake teaching responsibilities within the Department of Computer Science. He is involved in providing student and teaching assistant support within the Functional and Imperative Unit, led by Dr Tilo Burghardt.