Organizers

Catia Prandi is a Senior assistant professor at the University of Bologna, and Faculty fellow at the Interactive Technologies Institute (Portugal). She has carried out research in the field of accessibility and e-learning. She now deals with the study of aspects of HCI in contexts such as smart cities/environment, focusing on issues of social interest, such as sustainability, biodiversity and social inclusion. In particular, she studies the use of methodologies such as citizen science, gamification and game thinking, and data visualization to design technologies capable of increasing people's awareness. She has authored over 130 publications and has been part of 25 research projects. Currently, she is a partner leader of an EU H2020 FET project and the coordinator of a regional project, both about the digital twin of natural ecosystems and citizen science. She is also acting as a scientific advisor of the “CitizER science” project, a project funded by the Emilian Romagna (ER) region.

Christothea Herodotou is a Professor of Learning Technologies and Social Justice at the Open University UK. She has expertise in the design and evaluation of learning technologies that promote education opportunity and social justice, including learning analytics dashboards, online citizen science websites, and mobile game applications. She uses mixed-methods research approaches (e.g., learning analytics, interviews, surveys, participatory workshops, RCTs) to co-design with end-users learning technologies that meet their needs and bring positive impact to society. She is the academic lead of nQuire-a community and citizen science platform developed in partnership with the BBC, which supports the engagement of the public with scientific practices in ways that promote their learning and development. She is also the academic co-lead of the Early Alert Indicators project, a university-wide initiative that uses predictive learning analytics to identify and support students who are struggling with their studies through early teacher interventions. She has recently won funding from Horizon Europe to devise sustainable models of formal education that are based on co-production, design thinking and digital technologies (See ExtenDT2). In the past, she has held funding from major funding bodies including the National Science Foundation, Wellcome and ESRC to improve the design of online citizen science platforms and make science learning more accessible and productive to young people.