The LiDA project brings together a multi-disciplinary team covering five UK Universities. The biographies below detail team members’ particular contributions to our collective inquiry.

_______________________________________________________________

Mike Wilson, Loughborough University – LiDA Principal Investigator

Website: Mike’s profile
Email: m.wilson2@lboro.ac.uk
Social: Twitter / LinkedIn

Mike Wilson is Professor of Drama in the Department of English and Drama at Loughborough University, and he leads the LiDA project. His research lies in the field of popular and vernacular performance and he has published extensively on Storytelling, Grand-Guignol, and Brecht and his collaborators. His work on storytelling has led him to research the interface between storytelling and digital technology and the way in which the internet has enabled the telling and sharing of stories of everyday experience. He has recently been researching the use of storytelling as a framework for public policy development, especially in relation to climate change and environmental challenges. As well as leading the project, Mike will work with a researcher based at Loughborough on the development and use of creative and storytelling methods as a means for engaging our participants in understanding, dialoguing and communicating their experiences of loneliness and separation.

Lyndsey Bakewell, Loughborough University – LiDA Researcher

Email: l.l.bakewell@lboro.ac.uk
Social: Twitter

Lyndsey is a post-doctoral researcher on the LiDA project, leading the co-creation and storytelling aspects of the project. She is responsible for much of the design and conduct the co-design workshops with the different participant groups in the project, and supports the concept design and technology field trials conducted by the Northumbria University teams.

Sally Bellman, Loughborough University – LiDA Administrator

Email: s.j.bellman@lboro.ac.uk

Sally Bellman is a Research Administrator in the Department of English and Drama, Loughborough University. Sally’s primary role on the LiDA project is to manage and administer the project, co-ordinate team activities and to support the research team with knowledge exchange and public and stakeholder engagement activities.

_______________________________________________________________

Julie Barnett, University of Bath – LiDA Co-Investigator

Website: Julie’s profile
Email: j.c.barnett@bath.ac.uk
Social: Twitter / LinkedIn

Julie Barnett is Professor of Health Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. She is a social psychologist with a particular interest and expertise in risk appreciation, risk communication, the development of health technologies, the maintenance and change of behaviour, public engagement processes and policy development. As well as the LiDA project, her current work explores the role of user engagement in the development of medical devices, effective communication of food risk and benefit, and of the management requirements of plant disease. On the LiDA project, Julie will be leading the initial scoping and survey work and overseeing the planning, conduct and analysis of the qualitative fieldwork conducted with each of our participant groups over the course of the project.

Konstantina (Dina) Vasileiou, University of Bath – LiDA Researcher

Email: k.vasileiou@bath.ac.uk
Social: LinkedIn

Dina Vasileiou is a post-doctoral Research Associate at the University of Bath. On the LiDA project Dina works closely with Julie Barnett, and is responsible for the day-to-day planning, conduct and analysis of the qualitative fieldwork that forms the basis of the first half of the project.

_______________________________________________________________

Manuela Barreto, University of Exeter – LiDA Co-Investigator

Website: Manuela’s profile / Manuela’s personal website
Email: m.barreto@exeter.ac.uk
Social: LinkedIn

Manuela Barreto is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter. Manuela’s research focuses on the psychology of social disadvantage, exemplified by her work on identity (dis)respect, reactions to prejudice and discrimination, intergroup interactions, and the psychology of concealed stigmatised identities. On the LiDA project, Manuela will be leading the quantitative social psychological aspects of the project, and will be overseeing the development of measures for surveys that will help us understand the social interactions of our participant groups and the impact of the digital technologies developed during the project.

_______________________________________________________________

John Vines, Northumbria University – LiDA Co-Investigator

Website: John’s profile / John’s personal website / Open Lab
Email: john.vines@ncl.ac.uk
Social: Twitter / LinkedIn

John Vines is a Professor in the School of Design, Northumbria University. John works across the fields of design and human-computer interaction, and his research focuses on studying the impact new forms of technology has on citizen and community participation, activism, health and care and relational public service design. John has a specific interest and expertise in collaborative and participatory design, and a large amount of his research centres on developing and refining methods and techniques for involving citizens – often those who may be considered vulnerable, stigmatised or isolated – in meaningful ways at the earliest opportunity in design processes. On the LiDA project John will be overseeing the collaborative design work conducted with our participant groups, and with Shaun Lawson the conceptual and technical development of the digital technologies as well as their evaluation.

Shaun Lawson, University of Lincoln – LiDA Co-Investigator

Website: Shaun’s profile
Email: shaun.lawson@northumbria.ac.uk
Social: Twitter / LinkedIn

Shaun Lawson is Professor of Social Computing in the School of Computer and Information Sciences at Northumbria University. Shaun’s research broadly investigates the usage of social media, and other socially-enabling technologies, from a human-computer interaction (HCI) perspective. In 2006 Shaun co-founded the Lincoln Social Computing Research Centre (LiSC) at the University of Lincoln, and the Northumbria Social Computing Lab (NorSC) when he moved to Northumbria in 2015. He has authored or co-authored over 100 peer reviewed articles, papers, and book chapters across the fields of human-computer interaction, social computing and augmented reality. On the LiDA project Shaun will be overseeing the conceptual design, technical development and evaluation of digital technologies with John Vines (Newcastle University), with a specific focus on social computing applications and interventions.

Kiel Long, Northumbria University – LiDA Researcher

Email: kiel.long@northumbira.ac.uk
Social: Twitter

Kiel Long is a Senior Research Assistant based in the School of Design at Northumbria. He works with John Vines and Lyndsey Bakewell to support the co-design aspects of the project, and leads on the physical-digital prototyping strands of LiDA. Kiel also oversees much of the technology field trials, working closely with Ioannis and other team members to study how the systems built in the project are experienced by participants.

Ioannis Petridis, Northumbria University – LiDA Researcher

Email: ioannis.petridis@northumbira.ac.uk
Social: Twitter

Ioannis is a Research Assistant based in the School of Computer and Information Sciences at Northumbria, where he works in the NorSC research group. He works with Shaun Lawson and John Vines to develop digital prototypes that respond to the learning from the earlier phases of the project. While he works across all case studies in the project, he is primarily responsible for the design and technical implementation of the systems being created for University students.

Gavin Wood, Northumbria University – LiDA Researcher

Email: gavin.wood@northumbria.ac.uk
Social: Twitter

Gavin is a Senior Research Assistant based in the School of Computer and Information Sciences at Northumbria, where he works in the NorSC research group. He works with Shaun, John and Ioannis developing mobile applications and digital prototypes for the student case study.