Staff Profile
Dr Jan Smeddinck
Lecturer
- Email: jan.smeddinck@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 191 208 4642
- Personal Website: https://www.smeddinck.com/
- Address: Open Lab
Urban Sciences Building
1 Science Square, Science Central
Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5TG
United Kingdom
Background
Building on my background in interaction design, human computation, serious games, web technologies, machine learning, and visual effects I am a human-computer interaction (HCI) researcher and practitioner with a passion for digital health and education.
I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Digital Health at Open Lab and the School of Computing at Newcastle University in the UK. I am also the Degree Programme Director for the Human-Computer Interaction MSc at Newcastle University. Prior to this appointment I spent one year as a postdoc visiting research scholar at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley and I retain an association with the TZI Digital Media Lab at the University of Bremen in Germany. Building on my background in interaction design, serious games, web technologies, human computing, machine learning, and visual effects, I tend to describe myself as a digital media generalist focusing on human-computer interaction (HCI) research.
To me, HCI is critical for understanding how digital technologies can best serve individual users and the society at large. At the same time, HCI research and development plays an active role in facilitating positive technology development and change. To this end, research must get involved with individuals, companies, and public institutions. I apply these principles in my work with a passion for applications around health, education, and environmental issues.
My PhD thesis, titled Human-Computer Interaction with Adaptable & Adaptive Motion-based Games for Health, focused on the personalization of exergames designed for use in physiotherapy, rehabilitation, and prevention. It features projects for different target groups, including older adults and people living with Parkinson’s disease.
Cherishing curiosity, cooperation, and exchange I have multiple years of experience of working and studying abroad visiting the USA, Thailand, France, Canada, and England and I have been awarded with long-term fellowships by the ASEM-DUO program, the Klaus Tschira Foundation (KTS), and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). I am happy to contribute to numerous academic venues as a volunteer organizer and reviewer, including CHI and the IK, and I am a long-term member of multiple professional organizations in computing, including the ACM, GI, and AGI.
For a full list of publications, please see my Google Scholar profile.
Further information on my research projects can be found on the Open Lab website.
Research
Information about my research projects can be found on the Open Lab website, on the Digital Civics website and on my personal website.
Teaching
Most recent teaching:
CSC8611 Human-AI Interaction, upcoming new module (2020/21)
CSC8008 Information Systems, Interaction Design Theme (2019/20)
CSC8607 Research Methods, in Digital Civics (2018/19)
Publications
- de Grave RB, Rust N, Reynolds C, Watson A, Smeddinck JD, Souza Monteiro D. A catalogue of UK household datasets to monitor transitions to sustainable diets. Global Food Security 2020, 24, 100344.
- Pfau J, Smeddinck JD, Bikas I, Malaka R. Bot or not? User Perceptions of Player Substitution with Deep Player Behavior Models. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Putze S, Alexandrovsky D, Putze F, Hoeffner S, Smeddinck JD, Malaka R. Breaking The Experience: Effects of Questionnaires in VR User Studies. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Bellini R, Forrest S, Westmarland N, Jackson D, Smeddinck JD. Choice-Point: Fostering Awareness and Choice with Perpetrators in Domestic Violence Interventions. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Pfau J, Smeddinck JD, Malaka R. Enemy Within: Long-term Motivation Effects of Deep Player Behavior Models for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Alexandrovsky D, Putze S, Bonfert M, Höffner S, Michelmann P, Wenig D, Malaka R, Smeddinck JD. Examining Design Choices of Questionnaires in VR User Studies. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Bellini R, Forrest S, Westmarland N, Smeddinck JD. Mechanisms of Moral Responsibility: Rethinking Technologies for Domestic Violence Prevention Work. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '20). 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Pfau J, Smeddinck JD, Malaka R. Deep Player Behavior Models: Evaluating a Novel Take on Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2019, Glasgow, Scotland Uk: ACM.
- Zhang H, Smeddinck J, Malaka R, Shu Y, Chen C, He B, Fu Z, Lawo M. Wireless non-invasive motion tracking of functional behavior. Pervasive and Mobile Computing 2019, 54, 29-44.
- Pfau J, Smeddinck JD, Malaka R. Towards deep player behavior models in MMORPGs. In: CHI PLAY 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. 2018, Melbourne, Australia: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
- Othman M, Amaral T, McNaney R, Smeddinck JD, Vines J, Olivier P. CrowdEyes: Crowdsourcing for robust real-world mobile eye tracking. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, MobileHCI 2017. 2017, Vienna, Austria: Association for Computing Machinery.
- Smeddinck J, Herrlich M, Malaka R. Exergames for Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation: A Medium-term Situated Study of Motivational Aspects and Impact on Functional Reach. In: 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'15). 2015, Seoul, Korea: ACM.