Sanjit Samaddar
Associate Lecturer in Interactive Media

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Profile

Biography

I have been at the University of York since 2012. I studied for my BEng in Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science, going on to complete the MSc in Human-Centred Interactive Technologies at the same department. In 2017, I was employed as a Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science to work on the ‘GUFO’ project. This project involved developing an autonomous drone to help older people at home and act as an early warning system to detect and notify emergency services if a fall or accident took place. Having worked with the community and external research partners, I thoroughly enjoyed the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research and chose to start my PhD in the area of HRI, specifically focussing on how older people use robots and user-centred design of different robots.

While undertaking my PhD, I continued in my position as Research Associate, being involved in further research projects. This included: designing and evaluating an artificially intelligent chatbot to help young people with social anxiety; helping SMEs with the usability and accessibility of their products; consulting on the IKNOWFOOD project funded by the Global Food Security Programme; and consulting on an SBRI project helping to design a digital tool to analyse complex traffic congestion data.

I joined the School of Arts and Creative Technologies as an Associate Lecturer in November 2020. I have convened the “Media Production for Interactive Environments” and “Developing Interactive Media” modules. I am currently in the second year of my part-time PhD while continuing to teach at the department.

Research

Overview

My research interests are quite varied but generally always involve users in some way! My primary area of expertise and interest is in Human-Robot Interaction, currently focussing on how older people use robots and how robots can be improved to help them age at home. My research in this area has involved designing and evaluating an autonomous drone, voice agents, robot pets and avatars.

I am interested in accessibility and the needs of users and have developed evaluation methods for blind people and older people, specifically the use of personas as a research tool and “Consigliere Evaluation” to help blind people evaluate complex user systems. I have worked with the disabled students working group at the University leading data collection and analysis of disabled student needs at the University. I have supervised student projects including the accessibility and usability of online streaming services, the accessibility of the Twitter alt-text feature and the perceptions and accessibility of different avatars.

My other research work includes, working on the accessibility and universal design of (e)learning, designing an app to help reduce food waste, the use of emojis by non-native English speakers, cross-cultural icon design, and developing robots and intelligent support systems.

Publications

Selected publications

Samaddar, S., and Petrie, H. (2020, September). What Do Older People Actually Want from Their Robots?. In International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (pp. 19-26). Springer, Cham.

Petrie, H., Samaddar, S., Power, C., and Merdenyan, B. (2020, September). Consigliere Evaluation: Evaluating Complex Interactive Systems with Users with Disabilities. In International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (pp. 35-42). Springer, Cham.

Bowen, J., Petrie, H., Hinze, A., and Samaddar, S. (2020, October). Personas revisited: Extending the Use of Personas to Enhance Participatory Design. In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society (NordiCHI ’20), October 25–29, 2020, Tallinn, Estonia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3419249.3420135

Sanjit Samaddar Associate Lecturer in Interactive Media