Professor Shaun Lawson

Head Of Department

Department: Computer and Information Sciences

Shaun is Professor of Social Computing and Head of the Department of Computer & Information Sciences at Northumbria University. He is Director of the University's £9.5 million UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Citizen Centred AI, and he leads the University's Peak of Research Excellence in Computerised Society and Digital Citizens. He was formerly lead for the Northumbria Social Computing (NorSC) Research Group which he founded when moved to Northumbria in 2015. Prior to joining Northumbria he founded and led, for 10 years, the Lincoln Social Computing (LiSC) Research Centre at the University of Lincoln. His research lies at the boundaries between computing, design and the social sciences, and explores the use and significance of social media, and other collaborative and participatory digital services, in people’s lives. This includes a focus on the design, implementation and evaluation of new social platforms, applications and services as well as analysis of text, speech and image data. He was appointed the UK’s first Professor in Social Computing in 2011. He has conducted applied and cross-disciplinary work in areas including mental health and wellbeing, politics, activism, animal behaviour and sustainability. He has held, as PI, grants totalling over £12 million from funders such as EPSRC, ESRC, the EU, Microsoft Research, as well as industry, and is the co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed publications. He is the founding chair of the UK’s SIGCHI chapter, and a full member of both EPSRC and ESRC Peer Review Colleges.

Campus Address

Room 215
Pandon Building

Email Shaun

@shaunlawson

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
DCitizens Roles Unveiled: SIG Navigating Identities in Digital Civics and the Spectrum of Societal Impact, Carter, A., Montague, K., Talhouk, R., Lawson, S., Nicolau, H., Pires, A., Rohde, M., Del Bue, A., Knearem, T. 11 May 2024, CHI 2024 - Extended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Sytems, New York, USA, ACM
Designing for and with the ‘Digital Citizen’, Kirk, D., Boztepe, S., Christiansson, J., De Götzen, A., Ehrenberg, N., Grönvall, E., Lawson, S., Linde, P., Saad-Sulonen, J., Vlachokyriakos, V. 1 Jul 2024, DIS '24 Companion, New York, United States
Embedding Thinking Strategies within a Tangible Tree to Orchestrate Small Group Brainstorming, Melniczuk, A., Kang, N., Lawson, S. 11 Feb 2024, TEI 2024 - Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, New York, ACM
More than Human Digital Civics, Gowland, S., Scott, L., Handley, G., Carter, A., Lawson, S., van der Linden, D. 2 Dec 2024, ACI '24: Proceedings of the International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, New York, USA, ACM
Designing Technology-Mediated Peer Support for Postgraduate Research Students at Risk of Loneliness and Isolation, Harrison, D., Rowland, S., Wood, G., Bakewell, L., Petridis, I., Long, K., Vasileiou, K., Barnett, J., Barreto, M., Wilson, M., Lawson, S., Vines, J. 7 Mar 2023, In: ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
Social Media and Migration Studies, Mahoney, J., Lawson, S., Ambrosetti, E., Bertel, D., Leonardelli, E. 28 Apr 2023, 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2023
Towards real-time and large-scale web accessbility, P. Carvalho, L., Guerreiro, T., Lawson, S., Montague, K. 22 Oct 2023, ASSETS '23, New York, US, ACM
Ethical considerations in social media analytics in the context of migration: lessons learned from a Horizon 2020 project, Mahoney, J., Le Louvier, K., Lawson, S., Bertel, D., Ambrosetti, E. 1 Jul 2022, In: Research Ethics
The ethics of social media analytics in migration studies, Mahoney, J., Le Louvier, K., Lawson, S. 1 Jun 2022, Information and Communications Technology in Support of Migration, Cham, Switzerland, Springer
A systematic review of physical–digital play technology and developmentally relevant child behaviour, Torres, P., Ulrich, P., Cucuiat, V., Cukurova, M., Fercovic De la Presa, M., Luckin, R., Carr, A., Dylan, T., Durrant, A., Vines, J., Lawson, S. 1 Dec 2021, In: International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction

PGR Supervision

Jamie Mahoney Engaging Social Media Users: Understanding Online Interactions in a Retail Context Start Date: 14/10/2016 End Date: 20/05/2021
Garry Elvin Supporting mental health online in student populations Start Date: 01/06/2019
Chloe Kliman-Silver Dogs in the Digital Age: Redefining the Canine-Human Connection through Technology Start Date: 01/10/2019 End Date: 11/10/2024
Effie Le Moignan The Family Snapshot: Parental Representations of Family and Children on Instagram Start Date: 01/06/2017 End Date: 24/10/2019
Selina Sutton How to conduct sociophonetics research in online public video Start Date: 01/03/2017 End Date: 28/09/2021
Thomas Feltwell Agonistic Interfaces: Prompting Debate And Reflection On Socio-Political Issues Using Digital Technology Start Date: 01/03/2017 End Date: 03/03/2021

Qualifications

Mechanical Engineering PhD June 30 1996
Electrical and Electronic Engineering BEng (Hons) June 30 1990
Member British Computer Society (BCS) 2005

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Research at Northumbria

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