Dr Matt Wood

Assistant Professor

Department: Computer and Information Sciences

I am fascinated by the complicated and messy relationships we hold with digital technologies, and work predominantly in Human Computer Interaction.

I utilise (playful) qualitative methods to examine and interrogate these relationships, and I am a contributor to Victoria Clarke and Virginia Braun’s work in Thematic Analysis and Story Completion.

Much of my published work is around Digital Sexualities, which was also the focus of my PhD Thesis (Open Lab, Newcastle University, EPSRC Centre of Doctoral Training in Digital Civics).

Most recently I have developed an interest in Citizen Centred AI.

My interest in the relationships between people and technology also extends to my artistic work as a Puppeteer (see @tatwoodpuppets on instagram), concerning the intersection of human and non-human forms and the notion of ‘giving life’ to inanimate objects.

You can find me online: @DrMattyWood

Email Matt

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Challenges and Opportunities of LLM-Based Synthetic Personae and Data in HCI, Prpa, M., Troiano, G., Wood, M., Coady, Y. 11 May 2024, CHI EA '24: Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New York, United States, ACM
"Are We Now Post-COVID?": Exploring Post-COVID Futures through a Gamified Story Completion Method, Troiano, G., Wood, M., Sonbudak, M., Padte, R., Harteveld, C. 28 Jun 2021, DIS 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference, ACM
"and This, Kids, Is How i Met Your Mother": Consumerist, Mundane, and Uncanny Futures with Sex Robots, Troiano, G., Wood, M., Harteveld, C. 21 Apr 2020, CHI 2020 - Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM
Looking heteronormatively good! Combining story completion with Bitstrips to explore understandings of sexuality and appearance, Hayfield, N., Wood, M. 2 Jan 2019, In: Qualitative Research in Psychology
Research in the wild via performance: Challenges, ethics and opportunities, Taylor, R., Spence, J., Hook, J., Williamson, J., Wood, M., Chen, K. 4 Jun 2019, TVX 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video, ACM
Story completion, methodological innovation, epistemology and social change: Matthew Wood in conversation with Celia Kitzinger, Kitzinger, C., Wood, M. 2 Jan 2019, In: Qualitative Research in Psychology
Design for sexual wellbeing in HCI, Kannabiran, G., Ahmed, A., Wood, M., Balaam, M., Tanenbaum, T., Bardzell, S., Bardzell, J. 20 Apr 2018, CHI 2018 - Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM
"Protection on that erection?": Discourses of accountability & compromising participation in digital sexual health, Wood, M., Garbett, A., Morrissey, K., Hopkins, P., Balaam, M. 20 Apr 2018, CHI 2018 - Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM
Talk about sex: Designing games to acilitate healthy discussions around sex, Wood, M., Wood, G., Balaam, M. 5 Oct 2015, CHI PLAY 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, ACM