About me

I am a Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics (more details here). My main research interests are in: Human-Computer Interaction, Education Technology, Assistive Technologies, Technology for Autism, (Distributed) Participatory Design, Digital Accessibility, Multimodal Interaction, Artificial Intelligence and Human-Computer Interaction. I contributed to the design, development and evaluation of a free app (SOFA) which built on my PhD research work. 

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD in one of the above areas, please contact me by email. To apply for a PhD, please use this online application form.

A current PhD student that I am supervising is working on providing real-time feedback based on emotion recognition for improving children's metacognitive monitoring skills. 

Roles

Member of Artificial Intelligence and its Applications Institute (AIAI)

Coordinator of Internships & Exchanges (Incoming). If you are a visiting student,  you may find some useful information here.

Lead of Accessibility and Inclusivity Working Group

Others: project supervisor (see here more about the projects I (co-)supervised), lead of the VUG Cohort.

Education 

2015 PhD in Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK

2009 MSC in IT, University of Glasgow, UK

2000 PhD in Physics, University of Craiova, Romania

1986 BSc in Physics, University of Craiova, Romania

Awards/ Professional Activities

2024 Elected to serve 3 years on the Senate of the University of Edinburgh

2023 Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

2022 Knighthood, the National Order of Cultural Merit - section H scientific research, from Romania's President (you can see a short video from the ceremony, including my speech)

2019 Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Membership

2019 - present: Disabled Staff Network, University 

2019 - present: Cross-Party Group on Autism, Scottish Parliament 

2018 - present: Equality and Diversity Committee, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

2017 - present: Cross-Party Group on Disability Scottish Parliament 

Personal

In my free time I like to paint. I had several group exhibitions and one personal exhibition. Here are some of my works.

I like reading classic literature. While working in Bath (Nov 2014 - Dec 2016) I was an active member of a reading group. One of the recent novels I read is The Book of Fate by   Parinoush Saniee.

I love music, especially classical music. In Scotland, I discovered my passion for Celtic music. Here is my favourite Celtic song.